My friend, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Life is giving Alinua a dream of exactly whate her own experience was. Existing, yet bound up in a way she didn’t understand, and every movement was painful. When she tried to peer into the world, she was looking through her own essence (similarly to how you or I look through our eyes), but that meant that her power would flow into what she was looking through, causing the chimeric plague. There’s a considerable chance, that Life didn’t even know what was happening the first few times.
The sea dragons have no predators, they are far to mighty. It is unclear whether they require nutrition to survive or if they somehow exist the same way the Collector does, surviving on a constant flow of Life’s essence. However, they occasionally hunt as a form of entertainment.
Sun Wukong sneaking around in the background of a page in a comic that isn’t even taking place in his universe just so he can mess with some dragons is definitely a Sun Wukong-thing to do.
I’d say the dragons eat the smol frogs, but that’s just ridiculous.
The dragons INDIRECTLY eat the frogs. They eat the things that eat the things that eat the frogs.
oh my god, that’s what the chimeric plague is! it’s just Life, trying to get out. and because she’s literally Life, she can only get out through a living host, I’m guessing? so all her essence channels through a single mage, and they just burst!
Not even trying to get out. Just trying to see what’s going on, what became of her essence during her dormancy. It looks like even bringing enough of herself to a single place to perceive it causes chimeric plague. Until Alinua, who for some reason had the plague — which is to say she was an incipient avatar of Life — and survived it instead of going nuclear.
Alinua survived because her connection to Life developed “correctly” — her Great Rune birthmark is perfect, unlike the other carriers who had warped versions. Whether that’s purely developmental coincidence or because Life was learning to treat her prospective avatars more gently, I don’t know.
Kendal: I went on a vision dream quest, and gained a new sense of purpose, and absolution for my unresolved guilt at being born!
Alinua: Oh neat! I went on a vision dream quest, and gain LASER EYES. *zaps a nearby rock*
Kendal: …dang, I missed out.
Alinua, no! You’re disturbing an ecosystem! Ecosystems are delicate and can’t be torn up like that! Girl, you’re destroying a one-of-a-kind natural relationship between organisms!
When you peep long enough at the elf, the elf peeps back.
I think @Mat and @veggiesnake are on the money; I think this is showing a chimeric plague event. I think it’s implying every event has been Life taking a little peek of the world, inadvertently (at first anyway) causing mass destruction. I’m reminded of the myth of Semele getting incinerated when beholding Zeus’s true divine form.
I think I’ve got a timeline of events for this flashback. 1-20-18 shows Life dying and forming the adamant seal, trapping herself in place; 1-20-19 shows the Collector invoking her true name and waking her up; and here shows Life trying to interact/observe with the world around her, inadvertently causing mass destruction via chimeric plague.
Now Life has Alinua for perspective, allowing her to view the world in real time without causing it harm. That “FINALLY” she uttered back in 1-3-28 might be a god triumphantly finding their chosen vessel, or might be in the same vein as someone today finding phone reception in a difficult area.
I also wonder, did Life not know the damage she was causing every time, or just the first few times then decided to continue anyway? Does Life want some form of escape from her prison, get some influence over the world, have a mission to fulfil, or is she just curious?
Okay so this is actually really good analysis and a really interesting theory, but I just can’t get the mental image out of my head of Life standing out in, like, a field in the middle of nowhere, holding up a phone and shouting “FINALLY”
Oooooooh I had figured out already that the cloth bindings represented Life’s imprisonment, but it never would have occurred to me that 1-20-19 was the Collector invoking her true name! I just figured it was, like, the background noise of organisms living their lives on the planet. Nice analysis!
Interesting theory @Evil but I wait to see WHAT Alinua sees (hopefully this coming Friday) before drawing any guesses or theories or conspiracies. (smile)
on closer inspection, is the a campsite with people that she is destroying? I’m pretty sure I see two humanoids getting a very bad time.
Also, I think the ribbons are soul. The ribbons are binding and restricting the magic(life in this case) which is what the soul does in order to keep you… you. Forgive me if I misremembering information about the soul, I couldn’t find where it is explained to catch myself up.
That is really hard core! Especially since it implies that the void dragon is captured and held with SOUL! Also, that would explain why the primordials died to trap him..
okay, so there is foremost a lot of chimeric mutations happening here, but also a human(oid?) with green eyes. my first thought was Iras, but Iras has darker hair, so either they’re another person with the chimeric plague, or it’s someone completely unrelated who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when life (who Alinua is standing in for in this dream scape, i think) managed to surface or break through just enough to cause of burst of her energy to corrupt and mutate a bunch of stuff just out of the blue after the collector woke up
Poor life has probably just been so confused…
“Kendal? What are you doing here?”
“AH PUT ON SOME CLOTHES I DON’T WANT TO-”
“You have your shirt off like half the time anyway.”
“Yeah but – oh.”
…
“But why are you naked in your dreams though?”
Going to leave the theorizing to everyone else for now, until my creative brain cell stops threatening to hand in its resignation letter. I’ll just sit here and enjoy the art and the hilarious interactions going on in the comments (see above ^)
I respectfully disagree. I think it your intellectual brain cells that are exhausted (not artistic ones)! (smile warmly) I suggest if you just let them rest a bit longer (and dedicate some just for that) you will find they can recover just fine! But please keep exercising them as well as your artistic and empathic brain cells too!
POV: you’re trapped in the planet
Don’t worry, I’m sure this is only her dream and there isn’t going to be news about a giant sinkhole that mutated a bunch of nearby animals and plants!
Never before has Alinua’s left eye looked so creepy.
This might explain why Life detests the voluntary creation of chimeras so much. For centuries, she had inadvertently caused enormous amounts of devastation just by trying to look at this amazing world that had been created atop her. She wanted to look at the beings that indirectly came into existence because of her, unchanged by outside factors, but always became an outside factor herself; so the thought of someone willfully disturbing the ecosystem that she’s been trying to see, the ecosystem that she herself inflicted massive damage upon, fills her with a guilty rage. Like if you were trying to see an artificial biome inside a glass dome, populated by photophobic insects and normally shielded from observation by a curtain or something, and every time you tried to peek behind the curtain, the insects run away. Then, the one time that by some fluke they don’t run away while you’re looking, some jack*ss comes along and taps the glass, scaring the insects away anyway. I feel like that’s how Life has gained a hatred of willing chimera creators… which solidifies to me her lack of alliance with The Collector, noted chimera creator and mass murderer.
I wonder if the Collector had a similar view. Alunia may have a more, dare I say I, organic connection into Life’s mind, and may be all the better for it. The Collector, in her arrogance, may have forced her way through, even if accidentally, and wasn’t prepared for what she saw. This broke her, and maybe her sense of self, making her think being brought back is what Life wants. Alunia may have a better perspective and learn that Life, and the other gods, made the sacrifice to make a better world. One without the Void Dragon. One can only speculate.
Life doesn’t want to be free like the collector thinks, she just wants to see the world made out of her. That’s all the freedom she wants, and Alinua IS that freedom. My theory in last page’s comments were wrong. Life isn’t retelling Alinua’s story, Life is telling her own story. Just looking into the world was interacting with it, and such is the power of Life’s being, it would overwhelm the world completely. The ribbons and confusion were symbolic of what Life was experiencing. She was bound up in every ounce of living matter on the planet, and every struggle caused her pain, and peering into the world caused damage, and possibly the first instance of the chimeric plague.
Since there seems to be a consensus that this is a depiction of the Chimeric Plague, I thought I’d point out that the humanoid above Alinua’s eye bears resemblance to Iras of 1.2.12-13. Could this be a call-back?
Oh boy, nothing bad will come of this
Oh. Oh shit. This must’ve been the Chimeric Plague from Life’s point of view.
My friend, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Life is giving Alinua a dream of exactly whate her own experience was. Existing, yet bound up in a way she didn’t understand, and every movement was painful. When she tried to peer into the world, she was looking through her own essence (similarly to how you or I look through our eyes), but that meant that her power would flow into what she was looking through, causing the chimeric plague. There’s a considerable chance, that Life didn’t even know what was happening the first few times.
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: see? only bad things go “crack”
Image source: whoops
In darkness within the planet she floats
And out on this strange world she gloats
I am emotionally that small snake in the bottom right corner right now
Woooaaaahhh
Aurora Question #35: Referring to yesterday’s question, what would the predator of your animal be? And if there are no predators, what is it’s prey?
Alas, my small things with wings are constantly beset by chonky things with wings
while my multicoloured frogs do not have wings, they are indeed chonky, and will prey on small things with wings as described above
The sea dragons have no predators, they are far to mighty. It is unclear whether they require nutrition to survive or if they somehow exist the same way the Collector does, surviving on a constant flow of Life’s essence. However, they occasionally hunt as a form of entertainment.
immortal. monkey. king.
Sun Wukong sneaking around in the background of a page in a comic that isn’t even taking place in his universe just so he can mess with some dragons is definitely a Sun Wukong-thing to do.
I’d say the dragons eat the smol frogs, but that’s just ridiculous.
The dragons INDIRECTLY eat the frogs. They eat the things that eat the things that eat the frogs.
Devon
oh my god is she receiving Life VisionTM to a comparable degree as collie?
oh my god, that’s what the chimeric plague is! it’s just Life, trying to get out. and because she’s literally Life, she can only get out through a living host, I’m guessing? so all her essence channels through a single mage, and they just burst!
I think?
Not even trying to get out. Just trying to see what’s going on, what became of her essence during her dormancy. It looks like even bringing enough of herself to a single place to perceive it causes chimeric plague. Until Alinua, who for some reason had the plague — which is to say she was an incipient avatar of Life — and survived it instead of going nuclear.
Alinua survived because her connection to Life developed “correctly” — her Great Rune birthmark is perfect, unlike the other carriers who had warped versions. Whether that’s purely developmental coincidence or because Life was learning to treat her prospective avatars more gently, I don’t know.
Giant blue lady’s eye appears in middle of forest; more at 11.
ALINUA CAN SHOOT LASERS FROM HER EYES NOW LET’S GOOOOO
*orbital strike incoming*
Kendal: I went on a vision dream quest, and gained a new sense of purpose, and absolution for my unresolved guilt at being born!
Alinua: Oh neat! I went on a vision dream quest, and gain LASER EYES. *zaps a nearby rock*
Kendal: …dang, I missed out.
Alinua, no! You’re disturbing an ecosystem! Ecosystems are delicate and can’t be torn up like that! Girl, you’re destroying a one-of-a-kind natural relationship between organisms!
How are you so good at drawing omg
Wow, Life is very hot on “learn by doing” learning method.
The true lesson of this comic:
“Crack” is bad, yo!
When you peep long enough at the elf, the elf peeps back.
I think @Mat and @veggiesnake are on the money; I think this is showing a chimeric plague event. I think it’s implying every event has been Life taking a little peek of the world, inadvertently (at first anyway) causing mass destruction. I’m reminded of the myth of Semele getting incinerated when beholding Zeus’s true divine form.
I think I’ve got a timeline of events for this flashback. 1-20-18 shows Life dying and forming the adamant seal, trapping herself in place; 1-20-19 shows the Collector invoking her true name and waking her up; and here shows Life trying to interact/observe with the world around her, inadvertently causing mass destruction via chimeric plague.
Now Life has Alinua for perspective, allowing her to view the world in real time without causing it harm. That “FINALLY” she uttered back in 1-3-28 might be a god triumphantly finding their chosen vessel, or might be in the same vein as someone today finding phone reception in a difficult area.
I also wonder, did Life not know the damage she was causing every time, or just the first few times then decided to continue anyway? Does Life want some form of escape from her prison, get some influence over the world, have a mission to fulfil, or is she just curious?
Okay so this is actually really good analysis and a really interesting theory, but I just can’t get the mental image out of my head of Life standing out in, like, a field in the middle of nowhere, holding up a phone and shouting “FINALLY”
Oooooooh I had figured out already that the cloth bindings represented Life’s imprisonment, but it never would have occurred to me that 1-20-19 was the Collector invoking her true name! I just figured it was, like, the background noise of organisms living their lives on the planet. Nice analysis!
Interesting theory @Evil but I wait to see WHAT Alinua sees (hopefully this coming Friday) before drawing any guesses or theories or conspiracies. (smile)
on closer inspection, is the a campsite with people that she is destroying? I’m pretty sure I see two humanoids getting a very bad time.
Also, I think the ribbons are soul. The ribbons are binding and restricting the magic(life in this case) which is what the soul does in order to keep you… you. Forgive me if I misremembering information about the soul, I couldn’t find where it is explained to catch myself up.
That is really hard core! Especially since it implies that the void dragon is captured and held with SOUL! Also, that would explain why the primordials died to trap him..
I like that line of thinking! (on ribbons being made of soul essence)
okay, so there is foremost a lot of chimeric mutations happening here, but also a human(oid?) with green eyes. my first thought was Iras, but Iras has darker hair, so either they’re another person with the chimeric plague, or it’s someone completely unrelated who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when life (who Alinua is standing in for in this dream scape, i think) managed to surface or break through just enough to cause of burst of her energy to corrupt and mutate a bunch of stuff just out of the blue after the collector woke up
Poor life has probably just been so confused…
Thought she would be looking into Kendal’s dream for a second.
“Kendal? What are you doing here?”
“AH PUT ON SOME CLOTHES I DON’T WANT TO-”
“You have your shirt off like half the time anyway.”
“Yeah but – oh.”
…
“But why are you naked in your dreams though?”
I like the humor it that skit!
Going to leave the theorizing to everyone else for now, until my creative brain cell stops threatening to hand in its resignation letter. I’ll just sit here and enjoy the art and the hilarious interactions going on in the comments (see above ^)
I respectfully disagree. I think it your intellectual brain cells that are exhausted (not artistic ones)! (smile warmly) I suggest if you just let them rest a bit longer (and dedicate some just for that) you will find they can recover just fine! But please keep exercising them as well as your artistic and empathic brain cells too!
POV: you’re trapped in the planet
Don’t worry, I’m sure this is only her dream and there isn’t going to be news about a giant sinkhole that mutated a bunch of nearby animals and plants!
If by the end of this she’ll be fine with this I’m leaving
Never before has Alinua’s left eye looked so creepy.
This might explain why Life detests the voluntary creation of chimeras so much. For centuries, she had inadvertently caused enormous amounts of devastation just by trying to look at this amazing world that had been created atop her. She wanted to look at the beings that indirectly came into existence because of her, unchanged by outside factors, but always became an outside factor herself; so the thought of someone willfully disturbing the ecosystem that she’s been trying to see, the ecosystem that she herself inflicted massive damage upon, fills her with a guilty rage. Like if you were trying to see an artificial biome inside a glass dome, populated by photophobic insects and normally shielded from observation by a curtain or something, and every time you tried to peek behind the curtain, the insects run away. Then, the one time that by some fluke they don’t run away while you’re looking, some jack*ss comes along and taps the glass, scaring the insects away anyway. I feel like that’s how Life has gained a hatred of willing chimera creators… which solidifies to me her lack of alliance with The Collector, noted chimera creator and mass murderer.
Thank you for your thought @UnknownGame!
Life, uh, finds a way
It was an earthquake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
welp, a giant eyeball appearing out of nowhere is a thing of my nightmares. Thanks for that, Red.
Hollow earth conspiracy theory is real
…is that a metaphor?
alunia is godzilla confirmed?
I wonder if the Collector had a similar view. Alunia may have a more, dare I say I, organic connection into Life’s mind, and may be all the better for it. The Collector, in her arrogance, may have forced her way through, even if accidentally, and wasn’t prepared for what she saw. This broke her, and maybe her sense of self, making her think being brought back is what Life wants. Alunia may have a better perspective and learn that Life, and the other gods, made the sacrifice to make a better world. One without the Void Dragon. One can only speculate.
TL;DR: …now that’s either a giant elf or a tiny forest…
that’s a matter of perspective? Philosophically it’s a cul de sack;
Life doesn’t want to be free like the collector thinks, she just wants to see the world made out of her. That’s all the freedom she wants, and Alinua IS that freedom. My theory in last page’s comments were wrong. Life isn’t retelling Alinua’s story, Life is telling her own story. Just looking into the world was interacting with it, and such is the power of Life’s being, it would overwhelm the world completely. The ribbons and confusion were symbolic of what Life was experiencing. She was bound up in every ounce of living matter on the planet, and every struggle caused her pain, and peering into the world caused damage, and possibly the first instance of the chimeric plague.
Since there seems to be a consensus that this is a depiction of the Chimeric Plague, I thought I’d point out that the humanoid above Alinua’s eye bears resemblance to Iras of 1.2.12-13. Could this be a call-back?
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