2.5.36
on September 19, 2025
at 3:00 am
Now THIS is a mean friday cliffhanger, but it still feels less mean than any of the other nearby pages. Anyway, see you on Monday!
Also, this might be relevant.
Aurora
A fantasy webcomic. Updates M-W-F.
OH MY GOD THE GAY APPEARS ONCE MORE!
I mean, Alinua is pan and the assumed default for people is bi, statistically speaking there should have been gay people on screen recently.
“do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?” /j
nothing like a POV shot to remind everyone how tall Dainix is
he’s somehow even more beautiful from this angle, it’s unfair
Oh, yeah! He is tall! Man, I really don’t think about the characters’ heights
Dainix is a head taller than Alinua.
Falst is about half a head shorter than Alinua
Falst is like a foot or two shorter than Dainix lol
Alright, fess up, who is going to make the first Vore joke?
I think this comment means YOU are
Damn, I was supposed to destroy the vore joke, not join it
Guess I got vor-
I remember there was a Journey to the West episode where Red paused the narration to exclaim in disgust, “Oh. Oh, there’s VORE in this one. Eugch.” or something like that. But it sure looks like she’s going there, heh.
To my undying shame, I had to look up the term.
Now there’s some information I could’ve gone my entire life without knowing, and been happy for it.
She’s gonna go inside that thing, ain’t she?
Based on the linked page, I think Alinua’s going to create an automaton capable of carrying a whole city and pick the Wyrm up out of the water. /j
I am looking forward to those automatons, though. That’s going to be rad!
Why don’t we just take the wyrm and PUSH IT somewhere else?
Oh you are KIDDING ME-
So we are pulling a Sun Wukong. Wonderful. I love this decision. It’s a totally foolproof plan.
…
…Alina please dont
I mean, this might work out fairly easily, Alinua already showed she’s basically acidic for this poor wyrm
just… dodge the chompers first, not everybody has just-grow-a-new-head-[airhorn-sfx]-tier immortality
Love this fantastic callback!
And I love the way the speech bubble changes from the regular bubble in the flashback panel to the color-coded memory bubble in the present panels.
And I love Dainix for tactical reasons.
[flamingtext] And I love Dainix for tactical reasons. [/flamingtext]
“You are overcautious,” Valia’s voice echoes in Alinua’s mind as she kicks up desperately, trying to escape the Wyrm. More memories fill her mind.
“The Wyrm RAN from her!” “She wrecked your ship.” “How lucky we are!”
Something that needs help.
“If she were truly still the Wyrm, I’d never be able to turn the currents against her.” If she already had a god’s soul… “If the dissolution of her body were enough to bring her back…”
Something that needs help.
“She should be able to fix it herself no problem, right?” “Why is she letting it do this?” “Maybe it’s like a reflex?”
Something that needs help.
“She must have a reason.”
A stronger voice fills her mind, from days ago. “No, really, it’s the accepted strategy,” Dainix says as he accepts the cup of tea from her hand. “The first step in taking down something that big is usually to either get on it… or…”
Alinua hesitates, turning around to face the Northern Wyrm below her as Dainix’s last words echo in her head.
So, my school has this research project called Academic Fair that everyone does every year. You pick a topic then learn about it, and it gets more complex as you get older, like in middle school you could just pick a topic and talk about it, but in high school you have to have a thesis and everything. It’s to help you get better at researching and presenting and stuff. So right now, we just started and picked our topic, and we need to find 3 sources. Mine’s going to be on the extinction of land animals (another choice was horse welfare, but I’ll probably have more stuff on that so I want to save it for next year).
. But anyway, this is just to say probably I’m going to be very busy for the next 3-4 months. I’ll still get to these tho, most likely over the weekends 🙂 I might also talk about the progress I’ve made on AcFa idk
Firstly, wow I’m here early (I need to fix my sleep schedule)
Secondly, hoh boy, guess we’re going into the belly of the beast!
For mobile readers.
Alt-text: unfortunately I have a plan
Image source: strategy
That’s such a good alt text
tumblr text: it’s time for pro gamer strats
(…what game is the tumblr text referring to??)
I don’t think it’s a specific game, but I’m not a gamer
possibly Ocarina of Time specifically, which features traversing the stomach of a giant corrupted god fish, but stomach of a giant (often aquatic) creature is a very common gaming trope overall. See tv tropes page ‘womb level’
Also see Pinocchio, and Jona.
Bluesky text
It’s: this is the greatest plaaaaaan
Thanks, I don’t know why it didn’t post the rest of the text
Gotta love a Henry Stickman reference (maybe)
Orange, after all this time! Argh my eyes xD
And now Ali realizes what she needs to do… I am looking forward to seeing what happens.
Northern Wyrm next week be like: “I disagreed with something I ate.” (Bonus points for those who caught the reference)
Into the wyrm mouth we go!
To quote some youtuber I like (:P) who does myth videos:
“Oh no, there’s vore in this one…”
Based on Kendal having a similar sequence in the Tynan fight, I imagine the next Arc will see Erin have a series of flashbacks to different seemingly unrelated Chekhov’s guns that will all be used in a Chekhov’s firing squad against the current divine Kaiju
“Chekhov’s Firing Squad” is amazing lol
Ya know people we’re making Jonah jokes last page. I think they are becoming more relevant!!
Please for the love of god do not feed the elf to the kaiju
*slllluuuuurrrrpppp!*
Welp, time to get et, a well tested strategy
ahh this will be disgusting
Oh nooooo there’s vore in the next one.
I think this is my new favorite page of this chapter, the shot of little Alinua against the massive wyrm, the callback to something that nobody would have thought foreshadowed something, Alinua’s expression in the last panel.
Also giant Dainix from Alinua’s perspective. I went back to that page and damn that height difference is so funny.
Oh okay Aliuna is either pulling a Jonah or we are getting a Kaiju battle
or even better, both
CHEKOV’S DAINIX???
I would agree that this is mean but you gave link to the rest of Dianix sentence so it isn’t
to quote a certain myth youruber: the northern wyrm makes the rookie mistake of eating alinua whole wich unfortunately only gives her access to its most punchable organs
Alinua pulling a Sun Wukong is the last thing I expected from this comic but I love it
I’m just having Red’s line from that JTTW episode: “OhH, No… It’S the VoRe episode…”
Did you know:
A lot of bony fish have a second set of jaws which assist in manipulating prey to make swallowing food easier, however moray eels take that second set and uses them in a more extreme way. To compensate for a comparatively weak ability to suction-feed their second set of jaws evolved to be able to launch them into their oral cavity to assist transporting their prey into their throat.
:O Cool!
Some sharks have this aswell despite being a non-bony fish.
Whale sharks have a second set of teeth in their digestive track as their very large mouths have difficulty biting and they’ll swallow schools of fish at a time, but they can not launch them. The Goblin shark however, although only having one set of jaws located in their mouth can launch them about a foot forward from under their snout, the flesh surrounding their jaw stretching forward then springing back.
I think panel four looks quite beautiful and haunting as Alinua considers her options. I enjoy how the panels cycle from top left to bottom right, clever layout in my opinion,
“… or get inside of it.”
A callback to 2-2-2.
Dainix looks kinda neutral in the actual scene where he says this, but he’s smiling in Alinua’s memory of him. I wonder why that is? It wouldn’t be the first time that Red used someone’s memory of someone else (specifically how it differs from reality) to imply things about their perspective. The big example I can think of is Shrike remembering Erin, Tess, Falst, and Alinua in the Arc 2 prologue compared to how they actually looked in that scene from Chapter 14 I think.
Alinua. Please. The reason Dainix is able to get inside a giant war mech is that those typically do not have digestion systems. Do not let yourself get eaten by the big sea serpent.
I mean you’re totes going to, but at least pretend to be careful about it please, okay?
I didn’t even remember that panel OR that discussion. It’s like a magician’s trick: distract with the loading and Alinua’s reaction with the right hand, while with the left briefly flash the vital information for later.
my impression from the quotes in panel 2 is that the Wyrm instinctually recognises that Alinua can help fix/remove the mutated body she’s trapped in and so has been deliberately, albeit possibly subconsciously, trying to consume her, kind of like how cats will eat grass to relieve stomach problems.
Into the belly of the ex-god-turned-beast
What’s this? A character? Created by Red? Getting eaten by a giant snake?? To take it down from the inside???
I sense difficult rolling nearby…
“Gonna get inside that thing and take it out for a test drive, really put it through its paces!”
This needs an upvote.
Well I was not expecting that to be called back-back upon, atleast not that quickly.
I’m honestly surprised an off-hand comment like that was even remembered, I’m glad Alinua pays attention to her friends even if it gives her reckless ideas
Damn we gotta get the Wrym some tums or something, she’s gonna have a baaaaaad tummyache
Oh boy here we go
Chekhov’s best boy
Alinua: Wait a minute … back in Argist … with Dainix … I could really use a hot drink right now!
After the chaos of the previous page, in action and layout, now comes the calm; the diagonal slanted panels indicate there’s still action happening, but their larger size and clearer ordering slow down the pace significantly. Lots of great shots this page of Alinua’s panic/realisation, then sympathetic determination(?), and the warmth of her memory of Dainix.
I was thinking that the Northern Wyrm would catch up to Alinua, swallow her, and then she’d realise to use her magic, half panicking, inside it. I wasn’t expecting her to figure out what she must do, and commit to it, while still fleeing from the Wyrm. A nice surprise, and I like how it ties back to Dainix’s massive automaton talk; Erin may have been dismissing his concerns, but Ali was listening.
Prediction for next week: I think we all know what Alinua’s next move is; give the Wyrm the worst case of indigestion it’s ever had! Y’know assuming the mutated Wyrm even has a digestive tract.
More seriously, the quotes being shown give me the impression Alinua is going to try to understand it first and foremost; see what’s the Northern Wyrm’s actual will and what’s chimeric instinct. Then next week will be Alinua applying her magic to help her.
I really like this page, it’s so cool to see all the reasons and doubts compared like this, it’s like Alinuas life is flashing before her eyes, the Dainix flashback is also so cool!
Ah, I see Alinua is pulling a Trystine! Or did Trystine pull off an Alinua..?
Time to Jonah and the Whale this thing!
If she gets past the teeth…
As my D&D players say, ‘Sometime the safest place to be is inside the monster’.
So wait…if I’m reading all those quotes right…is Alinua thinking that the reason the Wyrm has been going berserk and trying to eat everything is because she needs somebody to dissolve her body form the inside?! So she’s just been eating everybody, in the hopes that one of them will be able to kill her?! That’s messed up, man…
Water mages are OP in the water, but life mages are OP when they are inside you?
…huh, I wonder how being inside someone would affect the soul barrier’s defence
It depends on if being in the digestive tract counts as “inside” the soul. We are topologically tori, after all
Not me reading that as torii (as in the gate ⛩️) ತ_ತ
I had a feeling this was going to happen. I thought it *had* several pages ago when Alinua got knocked away from Selach. Well, on to Monday!
Erin specifically telling Dainix and Alinua to not go inside something titanic and dangerous has had the totally unexpected result of Alinua doing the opposite. Love it.
Height difference jumpscare
… Inside it
SHE’S PULLING A SUN WUKONGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!
…or get IN it, yeah.
From Journey to the West KAI “Oh no, there’s vore in this one…”
She’s going to get eaten, isn’t she. On it or In it. That would definitely put her in a place to work her magic…
So, the Collector probably never totally took the Wyrm’s soul. That’s a given, right? But how did the Wyrm get messed up so badly that she’s attacking all her own people? Is it possible that her control over water is the only thing she’s still capable of exerting willful control over, and she stopped Caturus because the way they were about to kill her wouldn’t have worked? Or, is she in a state of confusion and the moment that Caturus lost control was a momentary return to sanity?
My guess is that the Wyrms mind has been warped by the mutations wreaked on its body, and as a result they’ve become feral. Gods gain an extra degree of clarity and focus when within a body, and having their body twisted the way the Wyrms has probably isn’t great for that. Like a funhouse mirror for the psyche of a god.
That makes a lot of sense
that dainix panel is really funny to me as a tall person like is that really what I look like to y’all
Aaaaaand I’ve caught up.
…
Sadness.
Cheeks flow down my tears.
Subtle as a brick, I love it.
in we go
Ooh! New detail noticed!
Most of the bubbles appear once each, but there is three times “something that needs help” as if Alinua is just thinking that on repeat from the moment she learned about the wyrm being a chimera
POV iron man in avengers
“THAT’S NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT WHAT I MEANT!”
“Really?”
“NO, THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I MEANT I’M JUST STRESSED”
Well Alinua, you heard Dainix. You know what to do.
Where did Kendal learn words like “Euphemistically”?
“Well that’s also how you get eaten”
Is that a shadow of the Colossus reference?