For mobile readers.
Alt-text: if I had a nickel for every protagonist with experience being a time bomb of dangerous magic I would have at least three nickels
Image source: fear
Okay, obviously the three Red has in mind are Dainix, Alinua and Erin, but that “at least” makes me think Tess might have some experience herself.
And oddly enough, Falst might make the list soon, but he’s not there yet because he doesn’t know he might be a ticking time bomb of dangerous magic.
If Dainix was afraid of heights it could genuinely be a very exponentially growing thing. Like “Oh no I’m off the ground” *fire intensifies* “Oh no I’m further off the ground” *fire intensifies x2* “OH GOD THE GROUND IS SO FAR BELOW ME” *fucking explodes*. You could use a crucible as a fear fuelled engine to soar the skies and I find that fascinating. This is the absurd kind of technicalities which are only possible in fantasy settings that I adore
Waaaait… if it was an air bubble AND air shield… has he just predicted being pitched overboard with someone!?! 😱 now I’m really hoping that it is and isn’t Dainix at the same time oooooo Monday can’t come soon enough 😀
Aww. It’s sad how perfectly matched Alinua’s life experience is with this. Literally just the exact same experience with a little spin of the element wheel. Now we just need Kendal to have an overwhelming force inside of him that he can’t control and fears is about to kill everyone in his vicinity to complete the RGB. And once all of the colors of light have united into white, Falst can have the exact same experience with the Light Dragon. And then Erin can invert the colours and get overwhelmed by black instead of white with the Void Dragon. And in a grand finale, Tess can get overwhelmed by the power of being awesome and go on a cool-one-liner-filled rampage, thus providing a flawless ending for the comic that will satisfy everyone forever
Look at Erin, stepping up despite not being perfectly in control of everything! And giving us such a magnificent cape-look.
Kendal, being stable, steady and the most bishonen of therapists.
And Alinua, oh, how she’s grown <3 You go help Dainix, he deserves it <3
But while I appreciate the genius of letting the sail cover everyone, and the magnificent shininess of the runes and all… where's the mast, and Tess? (Not that I'm biased and want to see as much of Tess as I absolutely can, well okay maybe just a little bit that's why I looked for it…)
Don’t worry the mast is in the middle of the deck, it’s just out of frame since the perspective is from such a low angle and outward from the center rather than across it.
The mast still should stick up a wee bit, looking at previous pages… With a lateen sail, the top part doesn’t pass over the mast. Ever, I think? Oh well, this IS still fantasy! And we have an Erin.
…i really hope im looking too much into things right now, but i wonder if Falst’s comment of “I’m not dumb enough to trust anyone with my life” may have, perhaps… set Dainix’s brain on a bit of a doom-spiral? Hence the close-up after falst made that comment?
Honestly, I’m pretty sure it’s the water and rain this time, not Falst. I think red said something on Tumblr at one point about Dainix having almost drowned in a well once when he was a kid, and we had that scene a little while back where Dainix got noticeably twitchy after being told how oceans work (page 10 of this same chapter).
Dainix: “The magic within me is trying to break out and kill everyone.”
Alinua: “Yeah, I get that.”
Dainix: “I should’ve known better than to trust myself!”
Alinua: “Yeah, I get that, too.”
This is both heartwarming and heartwrenching. Heartwarming because he’s got someone to talk him through it all and heartwrenching because she can only talk him through it because she’s been there.
I completely agree. I’ve been hoping for this conversation between the two for a bit. I now have it, but at what cost. simultaneously heartwarming and heart wrenching is a good way to describe it.
I’d say tactical hugs are in order, but Dainix is almost on fire at the moment and “tactical” is a crustables thing.
Well let’s just hope Erin won’t hurt himself, because he doesn’t seem to be so intent on letting the ocean down. He is probably doing this to help and to show that he is still control of the situation, but if he strains himself too much it could have some bad consequences which is the last thing the Floof Squad needs right now.
(Cue the sad rain as the heroes fall to despai-)
Erin: (halts the raindrops) Oh no you don’t!
I’m not sure what to make of Erin’s glare. On one hand he could be angry at Falst for unfairly blaming him for factors and complications he wasn’t informed about, and another reminder of how little some trust him. On the other hand it, and the impressive show of magic, could be determination to make sure this voyage, which he banked his reliability and trustworthiness on, works out.
Fear prompting a fight-or-flight reflex in Dainix’s Crucible powers? That makes sense, more sense than my previous theories about Rakhn or lack of fire energy causing this. Dainix’s power comes wholly from within, a closed circuit with no elemental links, so it makes no sense why external influence would be affecting him.
Fear of his past experience in water (as tumblr lore stated and every chance will come up in discussion next week), fear about his powers spiralling out of control, fear for harming his friends; it’s a vicious cycle they need to get under control pronto.
Yes Alinua! Your powers may not be much use here, but your past experience will. Both have volatile magical powers, both exiled themselves from loving families for fear of hurting others, and both almost gave into despair until they were given new hope. These two haven’t personally interacted much as far as I’m aware; an intentional act on Red’s part so this moment is all the more impactful?
Prediction for next week: Alinua explains her backstory a bit and how it matches with Dainix, he recounts his traumatic experience with water, and through both of them they bring the fire down. Who knows? Maybe Falst and Erin will overhear and their moods might soften a bit.
It could mean anything. I’d say Erin is certainly angry, or at least frustrated, with Falst and Dainix, but (as usual) that’s probably just him projecting his own anger at himself onto others. Even this anger is misplaced. None of them knew enough about Soulfire to anticipate this problem (although putting a Fire Demon on a boat was not their best idea).
Even Falst’s anger at Erin is sort of unjustified. Sure, Erin was pretty rude to Dainix in the heat of the moment but this also isn’t Erin’s fault either. They ALL failed to predict Dainix’ reaction. Falst is just angry because he also doesn’t know how to help Dainix, and he’s projecting it at Erin because Erin constantly acts like he knows everything and can solve all their problems.
Alinua, as usual, is about to carry the group. What more can I say. She is Mother.
As Erin returns to working his bubbles,
Alinua offers nausea-healing herbs.
“It’s not the seasickness, is it?” Kendal says,
That Dainix with fire disturbs.
“You said the heart of a demon is instinct and emotion,”
He continues. “This is fear.”
“It’s my fault! I should have been careful!” Dainix cries,
Feeling his right eye sear.
“I g-got too comfortable. I still can’t control it-”
He feels his body fray.
“Dainix?” Alinua kneels close. “I’ve been where you are.
Follow my breathing, okay?”
I love the way Kendal and Alinua are both contributing to this.
Another favored trope Red? 😀 But it works well for them, they are all young with relatively new power sets, and they don’t have the right sort of training in emotional control. Not suppression mind you, proper control starts with acknowledgement and setting things aside to take care of in a less volatile environment. And you have to carry through with that second part.
Hmm, emotional time bombs…
I can’t say any of my current characters have this specific combo. There’s a powerful one who has had some traumatic anger issues, but that’s more about being mad enough to make very bad choices. One woman came close to your version, but her surge of emotions woke up a power variant she’d been working toward creating anyway and she already had lots of training about controlling her passions rather than them controlling her, so there wasn’t much potential explosiveness there.
I’m not fully sure if this qualifies or not, but a robot made to cage something and they develop emotions alongside personhood, but that makes them worse at their job and eventually they let out the unstable power. Does that count as ticking time bomb or more as super powered evil side? is it really a side if it existed independently of the character? Oh wait there was also an actual bomb as a last ditch countermeasure installed into the robot. This was diffused because a person walking around with teh sword of damoclese constantly hanging overhead was not going to go well.
People have been speculating about Dainix’s transformation being a reaction to Rakhn… now I’m wondering whether Rakhn will react to Dainix. It’s easy to imagine that a volcano god would be sensitive to any unusual manifestation of Fire energy in their territory.
Erin seems upset, and I’m not sure why. Is it everyone second guessing his hubris, being unable to help dainix, kendal waking up prepared for a fight? Who knows?
I would probably also be upset if every single thing i had planned on my trip to my-only-hope-of-survival-ville kept going wrong one after the other and my friends were all screaming.
Protagonist: I wish we could have had this heartfelt conversation under less dire circumstances.
Writer: I DIDN’T! DIRE CIRCUMSTANCES FOREVER, BAY-BEE!
I haven’t seen anyone pointing this out yet, but the detail with Dainix’s hair swirling like a flame in panel 5 is really cool. There are definitely people more equipped to tell us what that means here, though.
Ooh, I like that frame too. It reminds me of shonen anime frames where someone is explaining something about another person’s emotions or power, and instead of showing what’s happening in the moment (the characters talking), the anime displays a… how to put this… a conceptual representation of the person being talked about? It’s like a visual media version of conveying interiority. In this case, it shows Dainix on his hands and knees alone on a turbulent ocean’s surface, his Crucible power animating his hair and threatening to rise up and overcome him. That’s not what’s he’s actually doing–he’s on the ship–but it’s showing us how he’s feeling and what state he’s in, internally.
You might’ve already picked up on all of that, though. My only addition for the hair, specifically, is the Crucible-rising-to-the-surface thing.
Do you ever just get trapped out in an unfamiliar environment and get seasick and then hear a thunderstorm and shouting up above and your mind starts racing and you start spouting flames and you don’t want to burn anything so you come abovedeck but then you can see the huge waves and people are looking at you in a panic and you don’t want to hurt anyone but you have nowhere to go if you can’t control it then everything is going to—
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: if I had a nickel for every protagonist with experience being a time bomb of dangerous magic I would have at least three nickels
Image source: fear
Okay, obviously the three Red has in mind are Dainix, Alinua and Erin, but that “at least” makes me think Tess might have some experience herself.
And oddly enough, Falst might make the list soon, but he’s not there yet because he doesn’t know he might be a ticking time bomb of dangerous magic.
Tumblr text: everyone’s doing their best and that’s what counts
Twitter text: cmon guys we’re all in the same boat
Rune translation.
Bow: P U S H D O W N F L O W A W A Y
Stern: P U L L D R A W U P W E L L
Whole Ship: C A L M K U I E T S T I L L
Phrases repeat.
On Whole Ship: kuiet, not quiet?
Runescript doesn’t have a Q
Hahah we see What you did there
Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened thrice.
Obvious solution: indestructible hot air balloon. The more he heats up, the further up he floats from potential collateral damage. /j
thus begins the Auroan/Ignan space programme
thus begins the Auroan/ Ignan space programme
If Dainix was afraid of heights it could genuinely be a very exponentially growing thing. Like “Oh no I’m off the ground” *fire intensifies* “Oh no I’m further off the ground” *fire intensifies x2* “OH GOD THE GROUND IS SO FAR BELOW ME” *fucking explodes*. You could use a crucible as a fear fuelled engine to soar the skies and I find that fascinating. This is the absurd kind of technicalities which are only possible in fantasy settings that I adore
Let’s change Dainix’ name to Laika while we’re at it.
This whole comment chain is ON POINT XD
That’s the real reason falst wanted to make an air bubble
Waaaait… if it was an air bubble AND air shield… has he just predicted being pitched overboard with someone!?! 😱 now I’m really hoping that it is and isn’t Dainix at the same time oooooo Monday can’t come soon enough 😀
So Erin has noticed that he’s made a few mistakes, that’s nice to see.
also the way the rain is drawn is fantastic.
Right? The rain is gooorgeous!
My mind went to that one scene in The Owl House with Gus and Hunter-
I love that scene. The “it’s hard when you can’t even trust yourself” bit resonated with me
Aww. It’s sad how perfectly matched Alinua’s life experience is with this. Literally just the exact same experience with a little spin of the element wheel. Now we just need Kendal to have an overwhelming force inside of him that he can’t control and fears is about to kill everyone in his vicinity to complete the RGB. And once all of the colors of light have united into white, Falst can have the exact same experience with the Light Dragon. And then Erin can invert the colours and get overwhelmed by black instead of white with the Void Dragon. And in a grand finale, Tess can get overwhelmed by the power of being awesome and go on a cool-one-liner-filled rampage, thus providing a flawless ending for the comic that will satisfy everyone forever
YASS Tess would be a super powered disco ball
Look at Erin, stepping up despite not being perfectly in control of everything! And giving us such a magnificent cape-look.
Kendal, being stable, steady and the most bishonen of therapists.
And Alinua, oh, how she’s grown <3 You go help Dainix, he deserves it <3
But while I appreciate the genius of letting the sail cover everyone, and the magnificent shininess of the runes and all… where's the mast, and Tess? (Not that I'm biased and want to see as much of Tess as I absolutely can, well okay maybe just a little bit that's why I looked for it…)
Don’t worry the mast is in the middle of the deck, it’s just out of frame since the perspective is from such a low angle and outward from the center rather than across it.
The mast still should stick up a wee bit, looking at previous pages… With a lateen sail, the top part doesn’t pass over the mast. Ever, I think? Oh well, this IS still fantasy! And we have an Erin.
…i really hope im looking too much into things right now, but i wonder if Falst’s comment of “I’m not dumb enough to trust anyone with my life” may have, perhaps… set Dainix’s brain on a bit of a doom-spiral? Hence the close-up after falst made that comment?
I’m Probably looking too much into things
No, we all caught that
Honestly, I’m pretty sure it’s the water and rain this time, not Falst. I think red said something on Tumblr at one point about Dainix having almost drowned in a well once when he was a kid, and we had that scene a little while back where Dainix got noticeably twitchy after being told how oceans work (page 10 of this same chapter).
Dainix: “The magic within me is trying to break out and kill everyone.”
Alinua: “Yeah, I get that.”
Dainix: “I should’ve known better than to trust myself!”
Alinua: “Yeah, I get that, too.”
This is both heartwarming and heartwrenching. Heartwarming because he’s got someone to talk him through it all and heartwrenching because she can only talk him through it because she’s been there.
I completely agree. I’ve been hoping for this conversation between the two for a bit. I now have it, but at what cost. simultaneously heartwarming and heart wrenching is a good way to describe it.
I’d say tactical hugs are in order, but Dainix is almost on fire at the moment and “tactical” is a crustables thing.
Well let’s just hope Erin won’t hurt himself, because he doesn’t seem to be so intent on letting the ocean down. He is probably doing this to help and to show that he is still control of the situation, but if he strains himself too much it could have some bad consequences which is the last thing the Floof Squad needs right now.
(Cue the sad rain as the heroes fall to despai-)
Erin: (halts the raindrops) Oh no you don’t!
I’m not sure what to make of Erin’s glare. On one hand he could be angry at Falst for unfairly blaming him for factors and complications he wasn’t informed about, and another reminder of how little some trust him. On the other hand it, and the impressive show of magic, could be determination to make sure this voyage, which he banked his reliability and trustworthiness on, works out.
Fear prompting a fight-or-flight reflex in Dainix’s Crucible powers? That makes sense, more sense than my previous theories about Rakhn or lack of fire energy causing this. Dainix’s power comes wholly from within, a closed circuit with no elemental links, so it makes no sense why external influence would be affecting him.
Fear of his past experience in water (as tumblr lore stated and every chance will come up in discussion next week), fear about his powers spiralling out of control, fear for harming his friends; it’s a vicious cycle they need to get under control pronto.
Yes Alinua! Your powers may not be much use here, but your past experience will. Both have volatile magical powers, both exiled themselves from loving families for fear of hurting others, and both almost gave into despair until they were given new hope. These two haven’t personally interacted much as far as I’m aware; an intentional act on Red’s part so this moment is all the more impactful?
Prediction for next week: Alinua explains her backstory a bit and how it matches with Dainix, he recounts his traumatic experience with water, and through both of them they bring the fire down. Who knows? Maybe Falst and Erin will overhear and their moods might soften a bit.
It could mean anything. I’d say Erin is certainly angry, or at least frustrated, with Falst and Dainix, but (as usual) that’s probably just him projecting his own anger at himself onto others. Even this anger is misplaced. None of them knew enough about Soulfire to anticipate this problem (although putting a Fire Demon on a boat was not their best idea).
Even Falst’s anger at Erin is sort of unjustified. Sure, Erin was pretty rude to Dainix in the heat of the moment but this also isn’t Erin’s fault either. They ALL failed to predict Dainix’ reaction. Falst is just angry because he also doesn’t know how to help Dainix, and he’s projecting it at Erin because Erin constantly acts like he knows everything and can solve all their problems.
Alinua, as usual, is about to carry the group. What more can I say. She is Mother.
Erin’s really trying his best okay guys look at how sad you made him.
As Erin returns to working his bubbles,
Alinua offers nausea-healing herbs.
“It’s not the seasickness, is it?” Kendal says,
That Dainix with fire disturbs.
“You said the heart of a demon is instinct and emotion,”
He continues. “This is fear.”
“It’s my fault! I should have been careful!” Dainix cries,
Feeling his right eye sear.
“I g-got too comfortable. I still can’t control it-”
He feels his body fray.
“Dainix?” Alinua kneels close. “I’ve been where you are.
Follow my breathing, okay?”
I love the way Kendal and Alinua are both contributing to this.
Erin knows his mistakes, and sends off the rain
While Ali teaches Dainix how to ease his fear and pain
While it’s totally a trope, I’m such a sucker for “character A helping character B through a panic attack via breathing exercises.”
That top right panel almost looks like one of those Twitter response pics with the way the sail is curving up.
Erin’s face looks very determined in panel two. I wonder what decision or conclusion he has come to in this moment?
I imagine it’s something along the lines of “not dying”.
Just stay on deck and focus on the horizon, you’ll be fine
Signed,
Your local oceanography student currently sailing through storms on a research vessel
Another favored trope Red? 😀 But it works well for them, they are all young with relatively new power sets, and they don’t have the right sort of training in emotional control. Not suppression mind you, proper control starts with acknowledgement and setting things aside to take care of in a less volatile environment. And you have to carry through with that second part.
Hmm, emotional time bombs…
I can’t say any of my current characters have this specific combo. There’s a powerful one who has had some traumatic anger issues, but that’s more about being mad enough to make very bad choices. One woman came close to your version, but her surge of emotions woke up a power variant she’d been working toward creating anyway and she already had lots of training about controlling her passions rather than them controlling her, so there wasn’t much potential explosiveness there.
I’m not fully sure if this qualifies or not, but a robot made to cage something and they develop emotions alongside personhood, but that makes them worse at their job and eventually they let out the unstable power. Does that count as ticking time bomb or more as super powered evil side? is it really a side if it existed independently of the character? Oh wait there was also an actual bomb as a last ditch countermeasure installed into the robot. This was diffused because a person walking around with teh sword of damoclese constantly hanging overhead was not going to go well.
TL;DR: Friend therapy!
at least three, if they are all in this story, then that would insinuate Erin.
Erin isn’t stupid, the most unpredictable things just really love happening to him
People have been speculating about Dainix’s transformation being a reaction to Rakhn… now I’m wondering whether Rakhn will react to Dainix. It’s easy to imagine that a volcano god would be sensitive to any unusual manifestation of Fire energy in their territory.
Erin seems upset, and I’m not sure why. Is it everyone second guessing his hubris, being unable to help dainix, kendal waking up prepared for a fight? Who knows?
I would probably also be upset if every single thing i had planned on my trip to my-only-hope-of-survival-ville kept going wrong one after the other and my friends were all screaming.
From last page, I really wanted another instance of “kendal diffuses magic explosion via hug” (it’s proven effective! ask your doctor today!).
Now I don’t know which I want more: a patented kendal diffusion hug, or a prototype alinua diffusion hug.
Falling drops and flames abound
Erin stops the rain around
Alinua, Kendal, soothe and tend
Red hot guilt in Dainix head
Protagonist: I wish we could have had this heartfelt conversation under less dire circumstances.
Writer: I DIDN’T! DIRE CIRCUMSTANCES FOREVER, BAY-BEE!
Oooooh, those are some good speech bubbles. Excellent use of the medium.
I was thinking the same!!
I haven’t seen anyone pointing this out yet, but the detail with Dainix’s hair swirling like a flame in panel 5 is really cool. There are definitely people more equipped to tell us what that means here, though.
Ooh, I like that frame too. It reminds me of shonen anime frames where someone is explaining something about another person’s emotions or power, and instead of showing what’s happening in the moment (the characters talking), the anime displays a… how to put this… a conceptual representation of the person being talked about? It’s like a visual media version of conveying interiority. In this case, it shows Dainix on his hands and knees alone on a turbulent ocean’s surface, his Crucible power animating his hair and threatening to rise up and overcome him. That’s not what’s he’s actually doing–he’s on the ship–but it’s showing us how he’s feeling and what state he’s in, internally.
You might’ve already picked up on all of that, though. My only addition for the hair, specifically, is the Crucible-rising-to-the-surface thing.
Magical panic attack let’s goooooooo
Do you ever just get trapped out in an unfamiliar environment and get seasick and then hear a thunderstorm and shouting up above and your mind starts racing and you start spouting flames and you don’t want to burn anything so you come abovedeck but then you can see the huge waves and people are looking at you in a panic and you don’t want to hurt anyone but you have nowhere to go if you can’t control it then everything is going to—
Erin looks so nonplussed, alone, and sad. Then he pulls himself together after a moment of woobiness to get down to work.
Good boy.
You know, if they had a leader, there would be a lot less shouting.
The speech bubbles and the fire are so good!!!