. “How–?” Alinua starts in shock, taking the Captain’s hand.
. “All hands, full bombardment!” Valia shouts. “Keep her disoriented! Don’t waste your spears — dislodge the stones!”
. “Aye!”
. “Caturus, as much power as you can give me. Hold her down until we’re ready.” Behind them, the white mermaid checks on Selach, who’s holding her side in pain, as the other mermaids and Sekrai dart off.
. “Aye,” Caturus says, blue swirling around his hands. “In a way, we’re lucky. If she were truly still the Wyrm, I’d never be able to turn the currents against her.”
. “You heard–?” Alinua starts. “You followed us?!”
. “I lent you my scout. She did her job and I did mine,” Valia snaps.
. “I told you it was dangerous! You should have listened–!”
. “She was our GODDESS,” Valia hisses, glowering at Alinua. “You had NO right to conceal her fate from us.”
. “…You’re right,” Alinua says, lowering her head. Then she looks back up anxiously. “But I– I had to be sure. What if I’d been wrong? What if I AM wrong–?”
. “These are distractions!” Valia shouts, interrupting. “ALL of these are distractions! What she is now is a threat, and if she cannot be changed, she must be stopped!” She glares at Alinua. “You are overcautious, wind-blower. Fearful of what you cannot control or comprehend.” Behind Alinua, Caturus spreads his arms, bubbles of glowing water surrounding them as the Wyrm plunges through the water below. “But then, your kind have never conquered your fear of the abyss.”
The school year starting has thrown off my schedule so much lol
I don’t have many thoughts other than what others have said… I do hope Selach is okay though
Uhh on an unrelated note silksong came out early today how is it I haven’t played it since I am still playing outer wilds btw (also no spoilers please)
Wind-blowers sure are fearful of what they cannot control or comprehend. After all, they don’t do things like look at something magical and godlike in scale and go “that’s malfunctioning; I bet I could turn it off.” /s
I love this rift in perspective! It makes so much sense that the deep sea dwellers wouldn’t be on the risk-averse side of the cultural spectrum, because have you seen The Horrors, The Horrors (TM) that live down there? But Ali’s entire life has been about her mitigating risks – 1) she’s a healer in a team with way too little self-preservation and 2) she always assumed she was doomed to kill anyone she came across.
Yeah I just think it’s neat worldbuilding and character work
What did they hear about the wyrm again? I don’t remember a page where alinu figured out that the northern wyrm wasn’t in the body , she doubted it but was never sure. Do we atleast know that the northern wyrm isnt in there anymore? What are the signs that she isn’t there and If someone here knows please tell us
“Your kind have never conquered your terror of the abyss”. Is that a self-deprecating dig at the OSP crew’s collective thalassophobia?
Ah, Selach is a scout, that makes sense given what we’ve seen; eye protection for surface reconnaissance, lack of weapon to not slow her down, and the like. I wonder if Selach knew Valia and the others would follow, or at the very least suspect they would. I guess I can’t blame them for doing so, and from the look of panel 6, neither can Alinua.
“Hold her until we’re ready”, as in her and Alinua? Yeah, if they overheard Alinua’s suspicions that the Northern Wyrm might not be in that incarnation anymore, they surely saw how her magic blew up a part of it. The mer-people aren’t going to let this opportunity go to waste, no matter how conflicted or fearful Alinua is; she’s in this operation, whether she likes it or not.
Valia does make a good point, albeit unintentionally, about Alinua and fear. She spent years fearing about the harm she could do as a chimeric plague carrier, only to then spend all her time afterwards fearing of the incomprehensible entity responsible for her powers and what they might think of the world. “Terror of the abyss” indeed. All reasonable fears, but ones that keep Alinua from acting as quickly and decisively as she could.
Alinua’s had encouraging words from Kendal and Erin about this, and worldly adage from Falst and Selach, but maybe this harsher lecture from the captain is what she really needs right now.
Prediction for next week: Caturus’s time to shine in restraining the Wyrm; there was no way Red would introduce someone with his powers and not use him. Judging from Selach’s injury in panel 2, I bet it’s going to be the captain who manoeuvres Alinua to the beast, unwilling to put anyone else in such danger.
The big unknown is Alinua, what she may think or do when they get to the Wyrm; at this point, I really don’t know what’ll come of it.
Well, isn’t this interesting! It seems that the page has been uploaded, but the landing page hasn’t been updated quite yet.
The title text of this comic is “skill issue i would simply not have anxiety”, in case zero wolf hasn’t posted yet.
In the absence of edits, I’ll note that I remembered the reply-to-com trick and have thus been proven thoroughly wrong. Welp.
Here’s to the Captain doing the “it’s too dangerous, we need to kill it” trick.
The jedi order fell quite easily to Palatine’s machinations due to their duel fallacies of misunderstanding preemptive action isn’t the same as aggression, and inaction is not the same as mercy.
Banger lines from the Captain, but also, uh, excuse me, Captain. Captain, you are a hypocrite. Captain, out of an abundance of the overcaution and fear of lack of control you malign, you assumed Alinua was a threat and tried to tie her up and control her.
I suppose Alinua and the Captain both have an abundance of fear; it just takes very different shapes. In Alinua, self-doubt and fear of hurting other people. In the Captain, aggression and fear of being hurt or having her own people hurt.
Though I think, perhaps, the Captain is making the right call here with bringing down the rampaging Wyrm chimera. And she’s certainly mobilizing her people effectively.
I don’t think that’s hypocrisy, really. The Captain isn’t saying “never be cautious or fearful,” she’s saying “don’t let the fear of doing the wrong thing paralyze you into doing nothing.” The Captain didn’t wring her hands about whether or not she should capture Alinua; she decided that Alinua was a threat and took immediate action to tie her up. I don’t think it was the *right* action, but it was certainly decisive.
“Do something! Even if it turns out to have not been the best thing, it’s better than standing around agonizing over the decision” (to put it a little more reasonably than the Captain) is a very interesting perspective for Alinua (The Overthinker) to be confronted with.
I doubt Alinua will be able to internalize any actual good points that Valia has because of the latter’s aggression, how she obviously goes and has gone way too far in the “charge ahead” direction in other situations. People can’t get people on their side by hating at them, and Valia’s logic is twisted to begin with. Valia’s valuable things to say are too buried in whatever complex(s) that she has or false logics she’s fallen into for her to be able to help people with their mental problems.
Inaction might have been what she was getting at or leading to, but at this point, she did NOT state that. Her actual words were saying that Alinua was “overcautious” and “fearful of what she cannot comprehend or control.” And she attributed that to Alinua being a “wind-blower” (i.e. stereotyping) and verbally stopped there. My point, which is that the Captain has those same characteristics and just expresses them very differently (you are correct that she’s taking action, aggressive action, as opposed to letting herself be paralyzed), still stands. She’s a pot calling the kettle black, even if it’s a layer or two beneath demeanor and behavior.
…ah, she does say beforehand that the Wyrm needs to be stopped. Some intent can be inferred from that.
Even so. I still think her words at the end of the page is hypocritical, and I’m not going to change my mind on that. She never said “don’t let those traits hold you back” she said “you have these traits” and has not yet acknowledged that she does, too.
…I know the Captain’s working on some false assumptions as to what Alinua actually is, but attacking someone over “fear of the abyss” strikes me as the wrong thing to say to someone thrown off a floating island as a small child…
That’s actually a very interesting idea of how merfolk philosophy might be shaped by their environment. The people of the land live their lives seeing the depths of the sea as nothing but death. They can look up at the sky and see the endless void of space. So the vast majority will just stay in their safe zone. The very idea of trying to plumb those abysses is reserved for the overly confident and/or the completely unhinged. Most just try not to think about it.
But when you LIVE in the water, those endless depths just become a frontier. Each individual merfolk might have their limits of how deep they wanna go, but EVERY merfolk lives with that option at all times. It’s there, they know it’s there, and they know it’s not SO dangerous as to be foolish to explore.
Huh. Captain paranoid kind of has a point, though. Alinua’s afraid of herself. I don’t think she believes she’s capable of fully controlling her powers.
I guess Primordial Life is keeping mum because she/they does not have anything that is helpful to communicate to Alinua. It’s also very embarrassing to admit to a lesser being your limitations (tongue in cheek). Also it shows respect for Alinua’s agency to come to her own conclusions, as well everyone involved. Good work Red sometimes saying nothing and just watching and listening is the right course of action! (and give the merfolk agency to act as they see fit to do).
Y’know if caturus is gonna just move the water at the wyrm that’s gonna be pretty cool
Gonna look like just telekinetically flinging things since it’s not like we can see the water moving.
I mean maybe we’ll get some current effects or bubbles or debris but you know
He’s just gonna be throwing the water at em. The clear water amidst a sea of other water. Water.
Valia: “We can’t control the Wyrm and we can’t understand it, so let’s kill it!”
Also Valia: “You landlubbers are so scared of what you can’t control or understand!”
Like, Valia was always in camp “Kill the beast”, the only one who has been convinced to do something by what Alinua has said is Caturus.
I wasn’t expecting to start liking the Captain. I feel like she’s identified Alinua as that thing any good military soul understands best: FNG needing some pep talk and guidance before she gets anybody useful killed.
And also as a very useful weapon for the current fight.
Oh, Captain, let’s make a deal
Where we both say the things that we both really feel
I feel scared and I’m starting to sink
And I only sink deeper the deeper I think
I think Alinua was right to keep her suspicions to herself until she had more information. It’s a bombshell, and she would have to be sure. Even now, I wonder if they’re acting prematurely.
Oooooh fun
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: skill issue I would simply not have anxiety
Image source: threat
tumblr text: underwater yelling!
Bluesky Text: the gang’s all here
maybe she should try taking some deep breaths and counting to ten /sar
. “How–?” Alinua starts in shock, taking the Captain’s hand.
. “All hands, full bombardment!” Valia shouts. “Keep her disoriented! Don’t waste your spears — dislodge the stones!”
. “Aye!”
. “Caturus, as much power as you can give me. Hold her down until we’re ready.” Behind them, the white mermaid checks on Selach, who’s holding her side in pain, as the other mermaids and Sekrai dart off.
. “Aye,” Caturus says, blue swirling around his hands. “In a way, we’re lucky. If she were truly still the Wyrm, I’d never be able to turn the currents against her.”
. “You heard–?” Alinua starts. “You followed us?!”
. “I lent you my scout. She did her job and I did mine,” Valia snaps.
. “I told you it was dangerous! You should have listened–!”
. “She was our GODDESS,” Valia hisses, glowering at Alinua. “You had NO right to conceal her fate from us.”
. “…You’re right,” Alinua says, lowering her head. Then she looks back up anxiously. “But I– I had to be sure. What if I’d been wrong? What if I AM wrong–?”
. “These are distractions!” Valia shouts, interrupting. “ALL of these are distractions! What she is now is a threat, and if she cannot be changed, she must be stopped!” She glares at Alinua. “You are overcautious, wind-blower. Fearful of what you cannot control or comprehend.” Behind Alinua, Caturus spreads his arms, bubbles of glowing water surrounding them as the Wyrm plunges through the water below. “But then, your kind have never conquered your fear of the abyss.”
The school year starting has thrown off my schedule so much lol
I don’t have many thoughts other than what others have said… I do hope Selach is okay though
Uhh on an unrelated note silksong came out early today how is it I haven’t played it since I am still playing outer wilds btw (also no spoilers please)
Oh my god, what a treat to have such wonderful games to play. Enjoy Outer Wilds; it is superb.
I mean, after three hours Steam actually started working, so I could actually buy it, it’s really good so far!
May you enjoy both in their own stories and play!
SPOILER WARNING I can’t believe Hornet dies in the first cut scene and you just play as Zote for the rest of the game
” your kind have never conquered your terror of the abyss” goes really hard!
Wind-blowers sure are fearful of what they cannot control or comprehend. After all, they don’t do things like look at something magical and godlike in scale and go “that’s malfunctioning; I bet I could turn it off.” /s
I love this rift in perspective! It makes so much sense that the deep sea dwellers wouldn’t be on the risk-averse side of the cultural spectrum, because have you seen The Horrors, The Horrors (TM) that live down there? But Ali’s entire life has been about her mitigating risks – 1) she’s a healer in a team with way too little self-preservation and 2) she always assumed she was doomed to kill anyone she came across.
Yeah I just think it’s neat worldbuilding and character work
What did they hear about the wyrm again? I don’t remember a page where alinu figured out that the northern wyrm wasn’t in the body , she doubted it but was never sure. Do we atleast know that the northern wyrm isnt in there anymore? What are the signs that she isn’t there and If someone here knows please tell us
Maybe 2-5-21?
It seems pretty clear that the Wyrm isn’t in *control*, but I’m not sure if it’s been confirmed that she isn’t there.
She didn’t. She told the scout her suspicions and the rest took her speculation as proof.
Caturuuus <3
Alinua's facial expressions are fantastic. And the admitting that the captain is right. Oh this comic is SO good.
I really like the Captain’s armour design, with the gills being uncovered, but still covering a fair amount.
“Your kind have never conquered your terror of the abyss”. Is that a self-deprecating dig at the OSP crew’s collective thalassophobia?
Ah, Selach is a scout, that makes sense given what we’ve seen; eye protection for surface reconnaissance, lack of weapon to not slow her down, and the like. I wonder if Selach knew Valia and the others would follow, or at the very least suspect they would. I guess I can’t blame them for doing so, and from the look of panel 6, neither can Alinua.
“Hold her until we’re ready”, as in her and Alinua? Yeah, if they overheard Alinua’s suspicions that the Northern Wyrm might not be in that incarnation anymore, they surely saw how her magic blew up a part of it. The mer-people aren’t going to let this opportunity go to waste, no matter how conflicted or fearful Alinua is; she’s in this operation, whether she likes it or not.
Valia does make a good point, albeit unintentionally, about Alinua and fear. She spent years fearing about the harm she could do as a chimeric plague carrier, only to then spend all her time afterwards fearing of the incomprehensible entity responsible for her powers and what they might think of the world. “Terror of the abyss” indeed. All reasonable fears, but ones that keep Alinua from acting as quickly and decisively as she could.
Alinua’s had encouraging words from Kendal and Erin about this, and worldly adage from Falst and Selach, but maybe this harsher lecture from the captain is what she really needs right now.
Prediction for next week: Caturus’s time to shine in restraining the Wyrm; there was no way Red would introduce someone with his powers and not use him. Judging from Selach’s injury in panel 2, I bet it’s going to be the captain who manoeuvres Alinua to the beast, unwilling to put anyone else in such danger.
The big unknown is Alinua, what she may think or do when they get to the Wyrm; at this point, I really don’t know what’ll come of it.
Well, isn’t this interesting! It seems that the page has been uploaded, but the landing page hasn’t been updated quite yet.
The title text of this comic is “skill issue i would simply not have anxiety”, in case zero wolf hasn’t posted yet.
In the absence of edits, I’ll note that I remembered the reply-to-com trick and have thus been proven thoroughly wrong. Welp.
Here’s to the Captain doing the “it’s too dangerous, we need to kill it” trick.
Commenting to see if comments show up
…First?
ALSO SILKSONG TODAY!!!!!!
Someone is mistaking compassion for weakness.
The jedi order fell quite easily to Palatine’s machinations due to their duel fallacies of misunderstanding preemptive action isn’t the same as aggression, and inaction is not the same as mercy.
Banger lines from the Captain, but also, uh, excuse me, Captain. Captain, you are a hypocrite. Captain, out of an abundance of the overcaution and fear of lack of control you malign, you assumed Alinua was a threat and tried to tie her up and control her.
I suppose Alinua and the Captain both have an abundance of fear; it just takes very different shapes. In Alinua, self-doubt and fear of hurting other people. In the Captain, aggression and fear of being hurt or having her own people hurt.
Though I think, perhaps, the Captain is making the right call here with bringing down the rampaging Wyrm chimera. And she’s certainly mobilizing her people effectively.
I don’t think that’s hypocrisy, really. The Captain isn’t saying “never be cautious or fearful,” she’s saying “don’t let the fear of doing the wrong thing paralyze you into doing nothing.” The Captain didn’t wring her hands about whether or not she should capture Alinua; she decided that Alinua was a threat and took immediate action to tie her up. I don’t think it was the *right* action, but it was certainly decisive.
“Do something! Even if it turns out to have not been the best thing, it’s better than standing around agonizing over the decision” (to put it a little more reasonably than the Captain) is a very interesting perspective for Alinua (The Overthinker) to be confronted with.
I doubt Alinua will be able to internalize any actual good points that Valia has because of the latter’s aggression, how she obviously goes and has gone way too far in the “charge ahead” direction in other situations. People can’t get people on their side by hating at them, and Valia’s logic is twisted to begin with. Valia’s valuable things to say are too buried in whatever complex(s) that she has or false logics she’s fallen into for her to be able to help people with their mental problems.
Inaction might have been what she was getting at or leading to, but at this point, she did NOT state that. Her actual words were saying that Alinua was “overcautious” and “fearful of what she cannot comprehend or control.” And she attributed that to Alinua being a “wind-blower” (i.e. stereotyping) and verbally stopped there. My point, which is that the Captain has those same characteristics and just expresses them very differently (you are correct that she’s taking action, aggressive action, as opposed to letting herself be paralyzed), still stands. She’s a pot calling the kettle black, even if it’s a layer or two beneath demeanor and behavior.
…ah, she does say beforehand that the Wyrm needs to be stopped. Some intent can be inferred from that.
Even so. I still think her words at the end of the page is hypocritical, and I’m not going to change my mind on that. She never said “don’t let those traits hold you back” she said “you have these traits” and has not yet acknowledged that she does, too.
“I would simply not fear the uncomprehensible horrors” , That guy, aparently
Don’t know how I just noticed this, but the captain really gives my Undyne from Undertale vibes
Angry military fish lady with spears
Well, *I* feel called out.
…I know the Captain’s working on some false assumptions as to what Alinua actually is, but attacking someone over “fear of the abyss” strikes me as the wrong thing to say to someone thrown off a floating island as a small child…
That’s actually a very interesting idea of how merfolk philosophy might be shaped by their environment. The people of the land live their lives seeing the depths of the sea as nothing but death. They can look up at the sky and see the endless void of space. So the vast majority will just stay in their safe zone. The very idea of trying to plumb those abysses is reserved for the overly confident and/or the completely unhinged. Most just try not to think about it.
But when you LIVE in the water, those endless depths just become a frontier. Each individual merfolk might have their limits of how deep they wanna go, but EVERY merfolk lives with that option at all times. It’s there, they know it’s there, and they know it’s not SO dangerous as to be foolish to explore.
Huh. Captain paranoid kind of has a point, though. Alinua’s afraid of herself. I don’t think she believes she’s capable of fully controlling her powers.
I guess Primordial Life is keeping mum because she/they does not have anything that is helpful to communicate to Alinua. It’s also very embarrassing to admit to a lesser being your limitations (tongue in cheek). Also it shows respect for Alinua’s agency to come to her own conclusions, as well everyone involved. Good work Red sometimes saying nothing and just watching and listening is the right course of action! (and give the merfolk agency to act as they see fit to do).
Y’know if caturus is gonna just move the water at the wyrm that’s gonna be pretty cool
Gonna look like just telekinetically flinging things since it’s not like we can see the water moving.
I mean maybe we’ll get some current effects or bubbles or debris but you know
He’s just gonna be throwing the water at em. The clear water amidst a sea of other water. Water.
Valia: “We can’t control the Wyrm and we can’t understand it, so let’s kill it!”
Also Valia: “You landlubbers are so scared of what you can’t control or understand!”
Like, Valia was always in camp “Kill the beast”, the only one who has been convinced to do something by what Alinua has said is Caturus.
You make it sound like its intolerance of things you don’t understand that’s motivating Valia, when the Wyrm has literally killed and injured people.
Boss Lady and Tess would get along pretty well I think. They both have that same kind of “Welp, time to get it done” thing.
I wasn’t expecting to start liking the Captain. I feel like she’s identified Alinua as that thing any good military soul understands best: FNG needing some pep talk and guidance before she gets anybody useful killed.
And also as a very useful weapon for the current fight.
Oh, Captain, let’s make a deal
Where we both say the things that we both really feel
I feel scared and I’m starting to sink
And I only sink deeper the deeper I think
I think Alinua was right to keep her suspicions to herself until she had more information. It’s a bombshell, and she would have to be sure. Even now, I wonder if they’re acting prematurely.
The captain’s point: Fighting now to end this
Be the Wyrm what she will, a threat she still is
I just noticed, but the captain is acting from a place of fear, while putting alinua down for it.
This was my immediate take as well:
“Yeah, you’re acting like a person who’s totally conquered her fear.”