2.4.21
on April 4, 2025
at 3:00 am
instead of a hard sibling conversation have you considered having another wizard duel about it
Aurora
A fantasy webcomic. Updates M-W-F.
instead of a hard sibling conversation have you considered having another wizard duel about it
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: objectively erin’s having a bad time but he was MADE for a sickly victorian angst-fest
Image source: run
tumblr text: 🙁
(note: today’s tumblr text is spelled out as “colon-open parenthesis”, but this site autocorrects emoticons to emojis.)
Bluesky Text: upsetti
Re alt-text: Oh definitely, the Victor Frankenstein-vibes are too strong to be ignored. Now can we please have him brooding on a glacier?
He’s got the perfect collar for it, even
. Tess sits in the entrance of the cave, staring out at the ocean. “It’s gone.”
. “Gone?!” Erin cries, twisting to stare at her.
. “Something big and angry cracked it in half.”
. “The others–!”
. “I don’t know. I wanted to look for them, but… someone had to watch your back.”
. Erin falls back to the stone floor, hands on his face. “You should’ve just left me behind,” he mutters shakily.
. “Not making that mistake again.”
. “It was never a mistake.” Erin lies with one arm over his face, voice still soft and unsteady. “I’d dragged you down enough already. You were right to run from me.”
. “You know you were never what I was running from,” Tess says, still staring out of the cave.
Sry I haven’t posted in a few days, school’s off break now so I’m getting back into the routine 🙂
Erin finally fulfills his true purpose: Victorian angst
This might be my favourite character dynamic in the story so far. Noble scion and the sister his dad bought for him is just such a messy hook for a relationship, you really struck gold here
Literally. It’s a Metal-Caste thing.
Erin going from “I am a God” last chapter to “Oh shit I have no idea what I am doing help I am stupid” shall be added to my ever growing list of evidence that wizards are basically software devs
WTF are you talking about He was never like that
Or are software devs basically wizards?
Little of ‘A’, little of ‘B’, the truth somewhere in the middle.
And in one book series that I cannot remember, the answer was yes.
Off to be the wizard, iirc
I wouldn’t consider it a “book series” necessarily, but there’s a web novel in progress called [Magic is Programming](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/69938/magic-is-programming) that I think is what you might be talking about. It’s probably not the only one of its kind.
Well any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic… It follows that anyone capable of operating any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a wizard
They don’t call it an Installation Wizard for nothing
Please also consider: exhausted college students.
Let’s hope he doesn’t see the first 61 seconds of Miscellaneous Myths: The Muses.
Like obviously not Tess like what gave you the impression Erin was even slightly emotionally intelligent
ERIN BACKSTORYY
That *fwump* is such a mood
Panel by panel, he becomes even more of a twink.
REAL
Thank goodness he’s on the “comfortable rocks”
Crying sobbing screaming bawling
so true… ough 😭
Crying sobbing bawling screaming
Right, place your bets folks, are we going to get a proper conversation between these two on Monday, or a scene switch?
In all seriousness, I love Erin and Tess’ dynamic, and that, even if it started in an iffy way, the two genuinely care for one another. They’re so sweet and need a break from the angst.
I’m betting on proper conversation, but maybe not a super long one? I don’t think the last panel isn’t really a “scene end panel”. We may be seeing Alinua soon though (hopefully, I miss her.) I hope she gets that mermaid she’s been wanting to see.
At this point Alinua deserves all the mermaids
Considering Life is about change and survival, I could totally see her waking up and discovering she turned into a mermaid or something in her sleep
Agreed! I really want to see mermaid Alinua!
Considering everything we know about life magic, stable auto-mutation would be nearly impossible and require absurd amounts of power and fine control. If Alinua could do it, she’d probably be the only mortal in all of history to even have the slimmest potential of doing so. So now of course I want to see it even more, because that’s sick as hell.
Erin really was made for sickly Victiorian angst-fest. He’s got the open shirt and waistcoat for it, too!
Also, Tess my love <3
Aurora Question #44: What’s your favourite ‘Side Quest’ so far?
Kendal eepy (learning how to sleep)
where’s the like button
Ditto, but also the specific incident of everyone trying to figure out whether Kendal experiences hunger
I liked Erin’s initial attempt to access the Paladin Archive… for obvious reasons. Also that one time Alinua bought a melon.
helping Erin get to the monks.
Also I know its so NOT the priority right now, but…their stuff 🙁
Dainix’s gear. Alinua’s seeds. Kendal’s sheath. Food, money, bed rolls, clothing, communication lacrimas. And Erin’s 𝘫𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘴. His research notes and textbooks and maps and whatever else he kept in what was basically a bag of holding.
Dainix’s gear should be on him still albeit temporarily inconveniently transmuted, Alinua can probably acquire new seeds (I don’t recall her having any that were of particular individual significance) maybe she’ll even get some call ocean seeds.
As for everything else, hopefully the boat sunk close enough the shore that they’ll wash up as flotsam if not there may be problems.
If Kendal doesn’t need to breath, he can just go take a walk to retrieve all of this. Hopefully the bag of holding is waterproof.
I think you underestimate how difficult it is to find stuff underwater. Not only could it all be washed away or eaten by the same thing that smashed the ship, it is just DARK underwater. Unless someone parts the ocean or enlists a school or merpeople to help (not out of the question to be honest), there’s no way we’re getting that stuff back.
Apparently Soulfire can burn underwater
Just sayin’
Ugh, true. There was a shipwreck scene in fantasy novel I love, which sequence included a major character death, but my brain was just like HER SKETCHBOOKS
waitwaitwait Words of Radiance??? That sounds EXACTLY like that scene with Shallan and Jasnah
WoR?
RIP Erins precious Asuran passport. You will be missed.
Another Wizard Duel? An excellent idea!
Tess: I cast, PHANTOM SHOE PEBBLE! (Erin feels an uncomfortable hard object in his right shoe. He takes it off and tries to empty it, but nothing comes out.)
Erin: Oh, why you-! I cast, BRIGHT LIGHT SNEEZE REFLEX! (Tess sneezes looking out the cave mouth with the sun in her face. She charges her lightning and sneezes from the light it gives off.)
Tess: (sniff) Bastard.
Erin’s speech bubbles are now a healthy white, but they’ve become jagged again as he takes in the news. Nice way to distinguish between broken speech from exhaustion and broken speech from emotional turmoil.
Interesting choice to have Tess facing away from Erin through this conversation. Is she being emotional and doesn’t want to see how despondent Erin is from the news, is she being practical in keeping a lookout in case she sees their friends, or both?
And the revelation comes crashing down. As I suspected, Erin was conflating the status of the ship with that of his friends; while he looks shocked in panel 2 at the fate of the boat, he looks absolutely devastated in panel 3 regarding the gang’s unknown fate. Once again, Erin’s decisions have, directly or indirectly, led to them put in mortal peril, as was the case in Zuurith; he banked his reliability to keep the gang safe on this trip, and lost.
I doesn’t matter if Erin was wholly to blame or not, he’s still going to blame himself.
Tess considers leaving Erin a mistake? Interesting. Erin understands why she left and likely encouraged it, but as we saw from the Glort vision, it was still a traumatic experience for him. This confirms that Tess understands that too, and also feels a sense of guilt about abandoning Erin, even if it was for all the right reasons.
Makes me wonder whether, on that night, Tess may have also thought about convincing Erin to run away with her. Is not convincing him to join her what she regrets? Does she feel a sense of guilt that her absence may have led him on the path to getting possessed?
Prediction for next week: Maybe one or two more pages with the Ruunaser siblings, before we address the elephant in the room. Or rather, the purple elf who isn’t in the room.
That or Red keeps Alinua’s current status in the dark as we cut back to the volcano heist.
I swera, If we go this whole arc without seeing Alinua, only for her to roll up on the back of a kaiju when it’s all over, I will be *so* pissed
Can’t wait to see what the purple elfelant is up to.
Ok can we talk about how incredible Red’s art journey is, like the lighting and perspectives are incredible, panel 5 looks so cool!!
The boat is gone, and so is the gang
Erin laments their past as his grief doth him pang
What a sad boi
I was wondering about the thing that broke the boat. I hope we get a namedrop soon.
Susan the sea serpent.
Better than Kragnok the Skull-Crusher the sea serpent
The grief and guilt (some of which is unwarranted) must be eating Erin alive; he’s so visibly stricken in panel 3, and his speech bubbles are wavery enough after that that he might be crying? Alongside the injuries and consequences of magically overextending himself, “bad time” is an understatement. The poor lad.
I’ve loved seeing more of the Ruunaser siblings these past several pages and am curious to see what else we’ll learn about them now.
I read it as a “weak groan, unable to fully process this” sort of voice, but I am SO on board with the crying interpretation
Yeah… definitely reading this as him crying.
Man this page bummed me out
There’s a fleck of moisture in panel four, as he throws himself back, that could be sweat or tears. I’m not sure if he’s crying, but I definitely interpreted Tess not looking at him as giving him privacy to process, because I think Erin would rather chew glass than lose control of his emotions in front of anyone.
Man, that horrified look in his eyes as he realizes that Tess couldn’t help the others because she was looking after him just guts me. Another one of those moments where I’m like, “Jesus, he’s just a KID, man. Can we please give this boy a hug, a nap, and a cookie?”
Also, from that last panel…if/when we meet Galen in person, he better start running, because I assume his control is what Tess means. And I’m not sure Erin differentiates running from that from running from (the burden of) him. Not really.
Yeah… Another detail I just noticed is the twist of his mouth in panel 5, and that little line under his lip. It makes me think of the shape a mouth can make when someone’s sobbing and trying to fight it. Either way, you’re right, he’s clearly in deep distress.
Panel 3 struck me too. I also wish to give the lad a hug and a blanket.
this might just be the trans guy HRT in me talking, but my brain read it specifically as that like… voice cracking, wavering half-cry that happens when you’re really stressed out/distressed but Your Eyes Won’t Produce Actual Tears.
UGH this man really was made for Sickly Victorian AnguishTM (i say this jubilantly with a joyful glint in my eye)
AUGH the angst!!! i need more details about their past asap
revisiting this page a couple days later and it still hits like crazy. for all erin knows his teammates could be dead—their ship got obliterated in the middle of the ocean during a storm, and it’s not clear if tess noticed alinua making the plorbs in the heat of the moment (and either way if she did notice she hasn’t told erin about it). in erin’s mind all of these people who he just met and came to care about died because of his own hubris and assumptions that he could take care of all their problems no matter how risky things got.
it really makes me excited to see how erin reacts when the gang inevitably reunites—if he’ll let himself be open about how scared he is right now or if he’ll play it cool and hide any signs of vulnerability like he so often does. either way this is an absolutely delicious low for him and i can definitely see him becoming more cautious and likely to listen to his friends than he was before
Red has an old tumblr poll that concluded that “a character is at their absolute prettiest when experiencing The Horrors”, and at the time I was like “idk I’m not really into that sort of thing”. I was a fool.
Get unconditionally loved and cherished, idiot.
Erin basically bases most of his sense of self worth on being capable. He has to be the one with the perfect plan, the one who knows what’s going on, the one with the power to save everybody, in short, the one that Fixes The Problems and that other people would rely on. Because he clearly used to NOT be that, and he refuses to go back to that. Hubris is basically his coping mechanism.
But, well, ever since this adventure started he’s basically managed to succeed at exactly nothing whatsoever, has been consistently the least useful party member and in fact his attempts at being The One To Fix The Problems half the time just made things worse, is in his mind burdening Tess *again* with cleaning up after him in a way he believes she doesn’t deserve to have to, and now, to top it all off, as far as he knows he has likely gotten some of his friends killed. Oh, and what seems like the most reliable source available just told him he’s going to be devoured from the inside by the Dragon in a way he cannot stop.
No real surprise he’s gone fully Victorian angst. Honestly at this point the surprise is that he’s still coherent. I’m pretty sure most of us in his position would have just given up and walked into the sea by now.
Hoping some plain talk with Tess can get a bit of pep back into him.
Good points! I hope we see a change in his characterization from now on. Perhaps he’ll be more muted and cautious when before he was loud and confident.
Honestly one suspects the opposite. It seems likely he will do something stupid and desperate to prove to himself that he’s not a burden and that, by his own metrics, *deserves* to be appreciated and taken seriously and like, respected as a person. Because I don’t think Erin considers he deserves any of that if he’s not being useful and competent and clever.
I’m not sure anyone wants to see what an elemental magus with Void powers looks like in full “okay, caution never works, so fuck it, we ball” mode, but I have a feeling that the chance of us getting to see it eventually seems to be growing by the page, basically.
I believe the ship idea, sailing into icy waters with regular and volcanic storms in an experimental boat, was the stupid and desperate attempt to prove he’s not a burden. Hit pitch was not just about convincing them to the plan but also to trust that he’s able, he offered to make a bubble for Falst anytime he wanted, and he was willing to overchannel for the sake of the trip.
It failed, and now Erin is reeling from it.
Erin’s view that he must be valuable and capable to be respected as a person needs to be tackled, especially now since he can’t use elemental magic with his tattoos damaged.
Maybe the gang could remind him of all the good he’s done: he gave crucial information to Kendal about the singing caves, and is still willing to assist in going down there once V.D. is dealt with; he taught Kendal to sleep and consoled Alinua about her identity in one chapter; and he rescued Falst and Dainix from the dungeon, including stopping Falst from getting cave corruption. That last one especially should be brought to light as that could really change Falst’s outlook on Erin, knowing he saved him from the same fate as his mother.
Erin has been really helpful and useful, just not in the ways he was expecting to. The gang needs to remind him of that as a depression arc for Erin seems all but guaranteed.
I do wonder how they are going to get off the island once Dainx is sorted out, what with a chimera sea serpent guarding it.
I know this isn’t really what they’re talking about, but I feel like it should still be brought up that if Tess had left him behind the dragon would be loose.
…
You know, it just occurred to me. He doesn’t mean left behind in the cave to go look for the others.
He meant left behind on the destroyed boat to be killed in their place.
Oooohhhhh. I didn’t realize that.
Ouch
I am now very interested in the implications of Tess feeling like she made a mistake leaving Erin behind at some point.
TL;DR: SIBLING ANGST!!!
How fortuitous! Like Tess, I also have news to reveal today. Look at the first letter of each of my comments from the beginning of this chapter (not including this comment). Actually, I’ll save you the trouble and put it here:
RED DO TALMUDIC STORIES
The reason I asked in this way was to explain something about the Talmud: the stories therein may seem mundane at first glance, but commentaries written later often explain the true meaning behind them. Red said herself in the Muses video (released just today!) that mythological stories exist to make sense of the world and share that understanding with others–and no stories have been doing this longer than the ones in the Talmud. And, unlike fragmentary Greek mythology, the culture that gave birth to the Talmud still exists, making study a lot easier.
Red, I know there’s a non-zero chance you’ll see this. I wrote this simply because I think you’ll enjoy learning about this, not because I want a video on it. If you don’t know Hebrew or Aramaic, I would suggest using Sefaria for an English translation.
That’s all I have to say on this. From now on all my comments will be more or less normal.
Red doesn’t read the comments much anymore. You’d be better off interacting directly with an OSP social media account
I did try to tell you…
While I do try (and procrastinate) to learn Talmud on a regular basis, I don’t think that such an opinion has occurred to me before. Gotta say, I like that.
While I do try (and procrastinate) to learn Talmud on a regular basis, I don’t think I’ve seen it explained like this before. It’s cool. And I highly doubt it would have occurred to me to suggest it to Red, but I do think you’re right… maybe try to get first comment at some point, I have a feeling she’ll be more likely to see it that way.
Wow, you did that really well. I didn’t even notice anything was up with the comments, they all fit perfectly
My boy
Look at him he’s so angsty
oh god ;-;
Big picture, Erin, big picture. Not watching your back = world-ending Void Dragon.
“You know you were never what I was running from.” Stars, the LOVE in that line. What a beautiful affirmation. I hope Erin pays attention!
“you know you were never what i was running from” my HEART