For mobile readers.
Alt-text: holding the planet-sized eldritch abomination morally accountable for the accidental deaths of insects unwillingly made from its corpse does feel a little odd
Image source: plague
…oh my god that’s what happened when the Collector woke her up- and the resulting shit hitting the fan is what probably convinced her that Life wanted to kill everything.
Yeah, probably. She woke up going “WHAT’S GOING ON WHERE AM I WHY CAN’T I FEEL MY [untranslatable]” and Collector took that as marching orders even after Life settled down and understood her new condition.
I see the appeal, but consider: virtually all of Erin’s spells required runic incantations and circles in a language most of us don’t understand. I’d wager that even the code-breakers would have a challenge reverse-engineering it for each and every thing. The curse of being well-studied!
I would…. probably end up wanting Alinua’s powers. All the things that could be done in real life by learning to harness Life related abilities, particularly of the healing variety.
Falst, super human strength and resilience, claws, jumping abilities, and heartened senses in exchange for slight mutations and occasionally getting bit in the ass by a magic resistance that’s probably meaningless in this world? Yes please
tbh, I kinda like Kendal’s powers. I could get a lot more done if I didn’t have to sleep (much). Plus, an encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of a major city couldn’t hurt either, nor would some level of Azula-blue firebending.
I’m going to go with Tess too, being invulnerable, having super speed and strength, and being able to shoot lightning would be awesome. I think she can also basically fly, based off the first panels we saw of her
Given that I am 48 and have bone spurs and the early signs of Arthritis that is going to require joint replacement surgery… I think I’ll take Kendal. Because damn I would love to just have a body that healthy.
Part of me wants to say Erin because ALL THE FLAVORS but Alinua would be nice too, especially for someone who isn’t from that world and hasn’t studied magic as much as Erin. It seems very easy to wield.
I would personally choose Alunia’s healing/growing power even at the risk of madness or becoming a living bomb and constant connection to a superior alien being. Though I also now want to play a superhero (Champions) brick advantage: Beefy! disadvantage: Himbo…
Erin. Because putting things based on arcane (and unforgiving) language constructs, that span across multiple domains, while not always being able to see all the consequences of the final result is sort of what I _do_ for a living. And tattooed runes were a non-trivial component for the more powerful magic of one of my favorite tabletop characters. As was “unraveling a non-trivial part of reality,” so even VD isn’t that much of a stretch.
I Applaud Alinua’s ability to be objective, or at least attempting to be, in a situation that would have many react emotionally, and without restraint. Also cool to see why the Plague happens.
oh lol I was wrong. Occams razor and all that.
still, I love that collector was right about Life not liking this situation, i mean yeah she’s doing the noble thing and trying to keep damages to people to a minimum, but it still sucks for her on so many levels.
And now she has Alinua, and yeah it’s looking like we have a theme of a bunch of very unhappy gods and primordials and a bunch of vessels for each of them and they all have a different relationship with each of them. That being said while the situations are pretty different in terms of motivation (probably?) and level of effect, Vash and Life and yes even our pal VD are all very complicated individuals and it calls into question a lot thematically about the nature of power and responsibility, and what each of us would do with it. And given the Zuurith/Storm arc, it’s really fun to see all these different levels of people and Gods and personalities reacting in different ways to the power they have, either through nature or through nurture or by fighting the odds for better or for worse.
It really seems to me like Red hasn’t just given us a story about these looming eldritch primordial existential crisis inducing beings playing with the lives of mortals beneath their ken (which is really interesting considering Red’s other work with her videos on Mythology and H.P. Lovecraft) but instead presents a story with themes looking at the humanity behind those figures, not just as beings representative of great power, but people who are complex and have different reactions to the power they have with a narrative that just takes all of these different reactions to power and immense responsibility and the dymanics involving both and just kind of plays with them and explores the implications of all of it, both through literal gods and primordial beings and through the main characters.
TL:DR Red writes the saying “With great power comes great responsibility” really, really well and i love it
I think I’m missing something obvious here. Life used Alinua as a vessel back in the forest, and it seemingly didn’t lead to anything remotely like the Chimeric Plague. So why couldn’t she do it again in Zuurith? Is it because that was a densely populated area?
I believe the deciding factor here was the glowy magic gem, whatever they’er called again. Life simply used the large amount of life magic stored in the gem, not actually using her own powers. Zurith didn’t have that gem. It would’ve all been purely life.
Man, I never really thought about it that way. That Life and the others were bound up in the planet’s beings without their consent, by their archenemy. I can understand why The Collector thought that Life wants out of the planet once she touched her mind. Then again, it’s unclear if the Collector knows that Voidy exists, so maybe she only got a piece of the story, not the full one.
So the Life entity is kind of like what happens when you have a Cthulhu level being but that actually gives a damn. They WANT to help and fix things, but they’re operating under such different rules/scales that none of it makes sense to them, they just know that when they do things, bad shit tends to happen.
But having an avatar on the world to perceive it and translate could be a method of, if not solving the problem, mitigating it.
Logic and understanding triumphs over potential hate and angst. I love it.
Life’s expressions have been difficult to read, what with the ten eyes at different angles and all. But those closed eyes, that’s regret, I just know it. She regrets every time the chimeric plagues, her own actions, caused death and destruction. And most importantly, Alinua seems to realise it as well.
Makes me wonder whether the creations of Aurora were fragile to the primordials by design. Maybe V.D. suspected the primordials might return so made their potential vessels difficult for them to use without breaking them.
Neat explanation but it doesn’t explain why Life was seemingly able to take control during the fight against Jolon. Maybe it’s a matter of scale, making a plant colossus takes less effort than cracking open a whole mountain? A matter of potential victims, putting a whole prison at risk is unacceptable but risking one evil doctor is?
My wild theory is that Life can control Alinua while she’s unconscious but having an awake soul also there would make trying to channel through her too volatile to risk. Like, when it’s just Life’s will in the picture she can do things, but having another will in there even if Alinua wasn’t resisting what she was doing would cause problems and might make them lose control of the magic. Or it might even hurt ALINUA, maybe trying to use life magic through her while she’s awake and also trying to use life magic would damage her soul or her own control of herself/life magic in some way.
Even if that isn’t true, I think it’d probably be fair for Life to work under the assumption that if she doesn’t know for sure that doing something WON’T cause a chimeric outbreak, proceed as if it will. She might have made the plant colossus in a panic when her avatar was injured and in danger and not healing and they were out in the middle of the woods so it was an “acceptable” risk, and it went well and now she knows she can do that (I think I remember she almost did that at some point during Tynan but Alinua was removed from immediate danger, but I might be mixing things up), but every little difference from that situation MIGHT be the difference that causes her attempt to go out of control and cause a chimeric outbreak, she doesn’t have the rulebook on this situation either.
Okay, I know all the other Primordials are dead, but I’m wondering:
If all six of them are fused together into the Adamant prison, is that why all of them are technically dead? Or because VD injured them enough that they didn’t have enough energy to not die after that happened? And more importantly, how is Life alive/awake? What state is she even in? And why aren’t the other Primordials the same? Help me out here, folks.
I take it that after the primordials make the adamant prison they died of their injuries shortly after. As for why Life is sorta-alive and the rest aren’t, my theory is it’s down to Life’s higher property, “evolution/adaptation”. Changing oneself to survive in the current environment; since her higher properly is effectively “not dying”, she managed to come back after her name was invoked, and has changed to her new state to match the world she finds herself in.
“dead’ might also be used in a similar context to the Cthulhu mythos, where many of the gods are called dead but not gone, and their spirits can push into the dreams and minds of the living. I think sleeping is the best mundane term for this. It appears that Life has woken up, but she can’t get out of bed without disturbing the blankets (every living being on the planet ) or getting off of the person she is lying on (the void dragon).
I also wonder if her being awake is causing the other gods to stir from their slumber, Ahem FIRE, and I am a little concerned that he might not care so much about causing a massive continent spanning catastrophe if it means killing the Void dragon’s vessel when he is still vulnerable.
I’ve just noticed that Red drew Morgan Le Fay studying sorcery with a rune that looks suspiciously like the true name for Wind magic back in her Arthurian Legend video at 14:00 or right here: https://youtu.be/i_jgF-S746o?t=840
I was thinking of my answer to Question #36 (@Question Master! you,you…person you! You make me ponder interesting things!) I realized Alinua’s power/advantage is not Healing and Life shaping but her ability to empathize, sympathize and comprehend an alien view and self discipline. Life (old Ten Eyes) provides the power as well as the risk of the chimeric plague.
lady pleas speak pleas
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: holding the planet-sized eldritch abomination morally accountable for the accidental deaths of insects unwillingly made from its corpse does feel a little odd
Image source: plague
…oh my god that’s what happened when the Collector woke her up- and the resulting shit hitting the fan is what probably convinced her that Life wanted to kill everything.
Oooh that just makes The Collector… Much, much worse
Yeah, probably. She woke up going “WHAT’S GOING ON WHERE AM I WHY CAN’T I FEEL MY [untranslatable]” and Collector took that as marching orders even after Life settled down and understood her new condition.
On this page theories are confirmed one by one
As she figures out everything Life has done
awwww poor Life
Aurora Question #36: Who is one characters unique abilities you would want the most (downsides and all)
Erin’s elemental mage status, with the downside of *hubris*
Yes I’m that one kid who picked “all the powers”
I see the appeal, but consider: virtually all of Erin’s spells required runic incantations and circles in a language most of us don’t understand. I’d wager that even the code-breakers would have a challenge reverse-engineering it for each and every thing. The curse of being well-studied!
Some people may choose Erin, which is fair. But if you choose Falst you gain comfy cat abilities.
I would…. probably end up wanting Alinua’s powers. All the things that could be done in real life by learning to harness Life related abilities, particularly of the healing variety.
That or Dainix, mostly for FWOOSH! reasons, haha
I think I’d like Alinua’s power set – especially if they came with her ultra-foofy hair.
Falst, super human strength and resilience, claws, jumping abilities, and heartened senses in exchange for slight mutations and occasionally getting bit in the ass by a magic resistance that’s probably meaningless in this world? Yes please
tbh, I kinda like Kendal’s powers. I could get a lot more done if I didn’t have to sleep (much). Plus, an encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of a major city couldn’t hurt either, nor would some level of Azula-blue firebending.
I think it’ll have to be Tess, I mean how cool is it to be able to shoot lightning?
I’m going to go with Tess too, being invulnerable, having super speed and strength, and being able to shoot lightning would be awesome. I think she can also basically fly, based off the first panels we saw of her
Given that I am 48 and have bone spurs and the early signs of Arthritis that is going to require joint replacement surgery… I think I’ll take Kendal. Because damn I would love to just have a body that healthy.
Also, I hate sleeping.
Part of me wants to say Erin because ALL THE FLAVORS but Alinua would be nice too, especially for someone who isn’t from that world and hasn’t studied magic as much as Erin. It seems very easy to wield.
I would choose that one flame dude cause he’s pretty cool. and very powerful.
Falst cause CAT. Alinua cause plants are cool (also healing)
Tess.
By process of elimination.
I would personally choose Alunia’s healing/growing power even at the risk of madness or becoming a living bomb and constant connection to a superior alien being. Though I also now want to play a superhero (Champions) brick advantage: Beefy! disadvantage: Himbo…
Erin. Because putting things based on arcane (and unforgiving) language constructs, that span across multiple domains, while not always being able to see all the consequences of the final result is sort of what I _do_ for a living. And tattooed runes were a non-trivial component for the more powerful magic of one of my favorite tabletop characters. As was “unraveling a non-trivial part of reality,” so even VD isn’t that much of a stretch.
Besides, I’ve already got the hubris downside.
Next page:
Alinua: I’m sorry for not realizing this sooner. You know what always makes me feel better?
..hugs Life-Mum…
I didn’t know i needed this and now i won’t be satisfied with anything less
I Applaud Alinua’s ability to be objective, or at least attempting to be, in a situation that would have many react emotionally, and without restraint. Also cool to see why the Plague happens.
DAMN SHE SAID IT
THE DEUS EX MACHINOT HAS BEEN EXPLAINED
if I think the next page into existence would it suddenly appear fully drawn?
A delicate cage
Exposes the fragile truth
Her terror is soothed
A know, this makes me wonder about the actual status of the other primal elements.
Huh; it appears Alinua has the same conjecture that I had on the previous page, regarding Life’s nonintervention in Zuurith.
oh lol I was wrong. Occams razor and all that.
still, I love that collector was right about Life not liking this situation, i mean yeah she’s doing the noble thing and trying to keep damages to people to a minimum, but it still sucks for her on so many levels.
And now she has Alinua, and yeah it’s looking like we have a theme of a bunch of very unhappy gods and primordials and a bunch of vessels for each of them and they all have a different relationship with each of them. That being said while the situations are pretty different in terms of motivation (probably?) and level of effect, Vash and Life and yes even our pal VD are all very complicated individuals and it calls into question a lot thematically about the nature of power and responsibility, and what each of us would do with it. And given the Zuurith/Storm arc, it’s really fun to see all these different levels of people and Gods and personalities reacting in different ways to the power they have, either through nature or through nurture or by fighting the odds for better or for worse.
It really seems to me like Red hasn’t just given us a story about these looming eldritch primordial existential crisis inducing beings playing with the lives of mortals beneath their ken (which is really interesting considering Red’s other work with her videos on Mythology and H.P. Lovecraft) but instead presents a story with themes looking at the humanity behind those figures, not just as beings representative of great power, but people who are complex and have different reactions to the power they have with a narrative that just takes all of these different reactions to power and immense responsibility and the dymanics involving both and just kind of plays with them and explores the implications of all of it, both through literal gods and primordial beings and through the main characters.
TL:DR Red writes the saying “With great power comes great responsibility” really, really well and i love it
@Question Master (replies still ain’t working)
Tess! I wanna zap things!
TL;DR: Empathy for the big guy.
yeah
I think I’m missing something obvious here. Life used Alinua as a vessel back in the forest, and it seemingly didn’t lead to anything remotely like the Chimeric Plague. So why couldn’t she do it again in Zuurith? Is it because that was a densely populated area?
I believe the deciding factor here was the glowy magic gem, whatever they’er called again. Life simply used the large amount of life magic stored in the gem, not actually using her own powers. Zurith didn’t have that gem. It would’ve all been purely life.
They’re called lacrimas btw
Man, I never really thought about it that way. That Life and the others were bound up in the planet’s beings without their consent, by their archenemy. I can understand why The Collector thought that Life wants out of the planet once she touched her mind. Then again, it’s unclear if the Collector knows that Voidy exists, so maybe she only got a piece of the story, not the full one.
Big power explaining itself and the hero understanding?
Love this!
so life basically cant move for fear of wrecking the entire world with chimeric plauge? thats quite possibly one of the worst hells in fiction
Yes. Yes you can be angry at it…
So the Life entity is kind of like what happens when you have a Cthulhu level being but that actually gives a damn. They WANT to help and fix things, but they’re operating under such different rules/scales that none of it makes sense to them, they just know that when they do things, bad shit tends to happen.
But having an avatar on the world to perceive it and translate could be a method of, if not solving the problem, mitigating it.
I LOVE IT
Logic and understanding triumphs over potential hate and angst. I love it.
Life’s expressions have been difficult to read, what with the ten eyes at different angles and all. But those closed eyes, that’s regret, I just know it. She regrets every time the chimeric plagues, her own actions, caused death and destruction. And most importantly, Alinua seems to realise it as well.
Makes me wonder whether the creations of Aurora were fragile to the primordials by design. Maybe V.D. suspected the primordials might return so made their potential vessels difficult for them to use without breaking them.
Neat explanation but it doesn’t explain why Life was seemingly able to take control during the fight against Jolon. Maybe it’s a matter of scale, making a plant colossus takes less effort than cracking open a whole mountain? A matter of potential victims, putting a whole prison at risk is unacceptable but risking one evil doctor is?
My wild theory is that Life can control Alinua while she’s unconscious but having an awake soul also there would make trying to channel through her too volatile to risk. Like, when it’s just Life’s will in the picture she can do things, but having another will in there even if Alinua wasn’t resisting what she was doing would cause problems and might make them lose control of the magic. Or it might even hurt ALINUA, maybe trying to use life magic through her while she’s awake and also trying to use life magic would damage her soul or her own control of herself/life magic in some way.
Even if that isn’t true, I think it’d probably be fair for Life to work under the assumption that if she doesn’t know for sure that doing something WON’T cause a chimeric outbreak, proceed as if it will. She might have made the plant colossus in a panic when her avatar was injured and in danger and not healing and they were out in the middle of the woods so it was an “acceptable” risk, and it went well and now she knows she can do that (I think I remember she almost did that at some point during Tynan but Alinua was removed from immediate danger, but I might be mixing things up), but every little difference from that situation MIGHT be the difference that causes her attempt to go out of control and cause a chimeric outbreak, she doesn’t have the rulebook on this situation either.
The glowy magic gem. It wasn’t life directly taking control, she was using the magic present in the gem to do that
Okay, I know all the other Primordials are dead, but I’m wondering:
If all six of them are fused together into the Adamant prison, is that why all of them are technically dead? Or because VD injured them enough that they didn’t have enough energy to not die after that happened? And more importantly, how is Life alive/awake? What state is she even in? And why aren’t the other Primordials the same? Help me out here, folks.
I take it that after the primordials make the adamant prison they died of their injuries shortly after. As for why Life is sorta-alive and the rest aren’t, my theory is it’s down to Life’s higher property, “evolution/adaptation”. Changing oneself to survive in the current environment; since her higher properly is effectively “not dying”, she managed to come back after her name was invoked, and has changed to her new state to match the world she finds herself in.
“dead’ might also be used in a similar context to the Cthulhu mythos, where many of the gods are called dead but not gone, and their spirits can push into the dreams and minds of the living. I think sleeping is the best mundane term for this. It appears that Life has woken up, but she can’t get out of bed without disturbing the blankets (every living being on the planet ) or getting off of the person she is lying on (the void dragon).
I also wonder if her being awake is causing the other gods to stir from their slumber, Ahem FIRE, and I am a little concerned that he might not care so much about causing a massive continent spanning catastrophe if it means killing the Void dragon’s vessel when he is still vulnerable.
I’ve just noticed that Red drew Morgan Le Fay studying sorcery with a rune that looks suspiciously like the true name for Wind magic back in her Arthurian Legend video at 14:00 or right here: https://youtu.be/i_jgF-S746o?t=840
just a neat little artistic motif
Nice! Did you see Red’s ‘Journey to West’ Part 10 already?
Got to love how just seeing things perspective reveals how others things look.
ALSO
Alinua in a few panels of this page looks like Willow from ‘Earthsong’ by Crystal Yates.
There once was an elf of the sky.
Compared to Life she’s a fly.
But she’ll place no blame
On Life’s great shame
And her agency dignify.
I was thinking of my answer to Question #36 (@Question Master! you,you…person you! You make me ponder interesting things!) I realized Alinua’s power/advantage is not Healing and Life shaping but her ability to empathize, sympathize and comprehend an alien view and self discipline. Life (old Ten Eyes) provides the power as well as the risk of the chimeric plague.
happy discount chocolate eve everyone
I like to imagine that Alinua sounds like Katara