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Post by Yin on Oct 7, 2009 6:51:23 GMT
Cranky Marcia.Dear me! Since the laser cows didn't catch that fire, it's probably the blinker stone.
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Post by Casey on Oct 7, 2009 6:52:12 GMT
Hahahahahahahaha, oh, Annie, that's brilliant... the game is up now for sure!
P.S.: If Annie's fake flames, which they are using to lure out the sneaky camp directors and catch them in their ruse, are coming from Young's monument, then mustn't that be where the kids are being held, as Annie would only be able to make flames come from her blinker stone, and Kat has it?
Either that, I suppose, or Kat and Annie figured out that they (the captives) were inside Bob and Marcia's house, and then Annie recalled her blinker stone to make the fake flames herself, while Matt (that's Matt, by the way) draws Marcia out so that they can free the captives from inside the house.
P.P.S: I checked my notes, and I'm pretty certain that this is the first time we've heard what Bob and Marcia's last name is. (I presume the kids have heard it somewhere off-panel.)
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Post by Yin on Oct 7, 2009 7:04:34 GMT
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Post by Casey on Oct 7, 2009 7:05:32 GMT
Ach, good eye Yin!
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Post by eightyfour on Oct 7, 2009 7:06:49 GMT
Allright, I concede. It was a game by the teachers all along.  In the 6th panel, is Matt trying to peek past Marcia into the house?  |
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Post by Mezzaphor on Oct 7, 2009 7:06:57 GMT
Yeah, my thinking was that Annie is creating fake fire at Kat's location, so as to signal to everyone where the kidnapped students are being held.
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Post by Casey on Oct 7, 2009 7:11:01 GMT
I wonder if Annie would have been able to "zoom out", so to speak, from Kat once Kat had been captured (katptured?) and seen where the room was that they were in.
If so, then once she saw they were in the Sutton house (presuming they are), then they would have all known that it was a prank, and then she would have formulated a plan to draw Marcia out... namely the fake fire.
Edit: I just had one more thought, before heading off to bed. I'm not so sure that any of the teachers know the things that Annie has learned to do with her blinker stone. Specifically, I don't think Marcia, Bob, or even Eglamore know that Annie can create fake flames. I could be wrong about that but I can't recall at the moment any time she's used that trick around an adult. So they are likely to be VERY fooled by this gambit.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Oct 7, 2009 7:19:00 GMT
I wonder what kind of range those walky-talkies have.
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Post by King Mir on Oct 7, 2009 7:32:52 GMT
Edit: I just had one more thought, before heading off to bed. I'm not so sure that any of the teachers know the things that Annie has learned to do with her blinker stone. Specifically, I don't think Marcia, Bob, or even Eglamore know that Annie can create fake flames. I could be wrong about that but I can't recall at the moment any time she's used that trick around an adult. So they are likely to be VERY fooled by this gambit. She told Anya that she can use it to create fire. Eglamore probably knows what a blinker stone can do, to a vague extent. But regardless, until someone arrives at the scene to observe that the trees are not in fact on fire, they have to treat it as an emergency. Annie could get in trouble here. |
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Post by rhoffman12 on Oct 7, 2009 7:41:21 GMT
I'll throw in my (hopefully not too wild) speculation and guess that this is what's going down:
- It's the teachers. If kids really were going missing, that walkie-talkie would have come out before now.
- The kids are all in Bob and Marcia's house. Marcia loves her some trees, that's why there was one in the room.
- Annie blinked back her stone, put it over by the monument and made an epic, fiery distraction for the daring rescue.
- The evil-tree from last Friday looks mean just because of his Gillitie pedigree, he's actually a real softie once you get to know him. Maybe domesticated? That's why the teachers are comfortable that the kids won't end up traumatized.
I don't think that she'd be making that big fire at Kat's location. There are much more elegant (and less terrifying to the students in the middle of the hypothetical blaze) ways to make signals with blinker stones, and she's shown that at the very least she knows how to make pink words with it.
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Post by warrl on Oct 7, 2009 8:11:32 GMT
I don't think that she'd be making that big fire at Kat's location. There are much more elegant (and less terrifying to the students in the middle of the hypothetical blaze) ways to make signals with blinker stones, and she's shown that at the very least she knows how to make pink words with it. Oh, that's easy. Annie zooms out from Kat to see where the room is, goes there (except aboveground) as part of a group, retrieves the blinker and puts it in the bushes, everybody leaves, Annie starts the fire. The kids in the room don't have to deal with the fire. Besides, Kat and at least some of the others have seen it before. |
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Post by enelya on Oct 7, 2009 8:12:59 GMT
Didn't Anya say that the blinker stone is basically training wheels and that eventually Annie will be able to do all the things she can do with the blinker stone now, without it?
Seems like a fantastic time for seeing if you can ride the bike without the stabilisers!
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Post by Aris Katsaris on Oct 7, 2009 8:14:45 GMT
But regardless, until someone arrives at the scene to observe that the trees are not in fact on fire, they have to treat it as an emergency. Annie could get in trouble here. The teachers would be very obvious hypocrites if they punished Annie or any of the other kids for creating fake emergencies -- when it was in direct response to the fake emergency the teachers created. |
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Post by Mishmash on Oct 7, 2009 9:21:13 GMT
Just so long as those etheric flames haven't REALLY set the trees on fire, since the trees have lingering etheric ties too...
but that seems unlikely. I just feel it is important to throw a dart at every space on the board in these forums.
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Post by The Stranger on Oct 7, 2009 9:54:25 GMT
What has me bothered here is that it looks like the camping trip is intentionally set up to be a lousy, unpleasant experience while the Eglamore and Bob "rescue" the children from nature and bring them to a more comfortable, walled-off home. I mean, if Annie weren't there, the most fun thing about camping (the campfire) wouldn't even exist thanks to the cows. Not to mention the suspiciously bad timing that the camping trip was scheduled exactly when the weather is bad.
On a side note, we still have no idea what's with the treefolk. Is it a machine?
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Post by judgedeadd on Oct 7, 2009 10:10:59 GMT
Maybe it's a guy in a cheap costume.
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Post by Aris Katsaris on Oct 7, 2009 10:13:57 GMT
Eh, I'd argue that using her abilities without the stone would best be done with Anja's supervision (it's Anja, btw, not Anya) the first time -- and not creating something as potentially dangerous as fire in the presence of other kids.
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Post by todd on Oct 7, 2009 10:43:40 GMT
The teachers would be very obvious hypocrites if they punished Annie or any of the other kids for creating fake emergencies -- when it was in direct response to the fake emergency the teachers created. That's assuming that the teachers were behind the kidnappings to begin with (we don't know for certain yet). And they might see it as more "only grown-ups are allowed to create fake emergencies", even if they were the ones responsible. |
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Post by hal9000 on Oct 7, 2009 11:16:07 GMT
That's assuming that the teachers were behind the kidnappings to begin with (we don't know for certain yet). And they might see it as more "only grown-ups are allowed to create fake emergencies", even if they were the ones responsible. Well, if they weren't responsible for the kidnappings, then they certainly took a pretty cavalier attitude towards the whole situation if it was necessary to set the woods on fire to get their attention. |
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Post by King Mir on Oct 7, 2009 11:34:31 GMT
But regardless, until someone arrives at the scene to observe that the trees are not in fact on fire, they have to treat it as an emergency. Annie could get in trouble here. The teachers would be very obvious hypocrites if they punished Annie or any of the other kids for creating fake emergencies -- when it was in direct response to the fake emergency the teachers created. That excuse never works. If it's against the rules to make fake emergencies, then you get in trouble for doing it, even if the teachers were doing it too. And from a safety standpoint it makes sense, because the teachers are the ones who facilitate the emergency response and because there are also legitimate reasons to have drills where the participants are not told it's a drill until later. |
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Post by todd on Oct 7, 2009 11:44:27 GMT
Well, if they weren't responsible for the kidnappings, then they certainly took a pretty cavalier attitude towards the whole situation if it was necessary to set the woods on fire to get their attention. And I think that's the main reason why we assume that the adults were behind the kidnappings; if they weren't, it's hard to reconcile their actions with their level of competence and ability in the rest of the webcomic (except maybe in Chapter One, where the teachers are no help to Annie - though the only one we see there is a stuffy-looking anonymous fellow whom we never hear from again). |
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Post by hal9000 on Oct 7, 2009 12:35:26 GMT
The teachers would be very obvious hypocrites if they punished Annie or any of the other kids for creating fake emergencies -- when it was in direct response to the fake emergency the teachers created. That excuse never works. If it's against the rules to make fake emergencies, then you get in trouble for doing it, even if the teachers were doing it too. And from a safety standpoint it makes sense, because the teachers are the ones who facilitate the emergency response and because there are also legitimate reasons to have drills where the participants are not told it's a drill until later. The thing about drills is that they're used to test/reinforce the training for dealing with those situations. The kids were thrown into the situation with no explanation or guidance whatsoever, and were actively rebuffed when they attempted to seek it. It seems obvious that they would eventually become desperate enough to try something drastic, and so the teachers should have anticipated this. I mean, what if instead of using the blinker stone to create fire, they'd hotwired a laser cow for the same purpose (or even sentry-gun duty)? I mean, it's not that far-fetched when you consider some of the people in that class have built working anti-gravity aircraft and so on. |
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Post by Aris Katsaris on Oct 7, 2009 12:49:32 GMT
That excuse never works. If it's against the rules to make fake emergencies, then you get in trouble for doing it, even if the teachers were doing it too. And from a safety standpoint it makes sense, because the teachers are the ones who facilitate the emergency response and because there are also legitimate reasons to have drills where the participants are not told it's a drill until later. Well, in this case, the "drill" is a kidnapping scenario -- if the kids are not allowed to escape by fooling their captors, how are they supposed to react? Wait to be eaten or killed? Abandon their fellow students to their fate? And to forestall todd's revisiting the "we don't know for sure yet if it is the teachers" -- we've discussed that point for weeks already in previous threads. Perhaps in this thread we should just take that conclusion as a given for the sake of the discussion. And even if the captors are *not* the teachers, the fake fire would still be a good thing to do, as it'd be the only way to alert teachers to the actual kidnappings taking place (Marcia may be a psychopath that only cares about the trees, but the fire brings teachers to the location that will actually care about the danger to human children too). |
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Post by King Mir on Oct 7, 2009 13:25:08 GMT
Well this isn't a drill. But if teachers are allowed to issue drills, then its not a stretch to allow them to have this kind of fun. There's no more harm is done than an ordinary unannounced drill. This is not an endorsement of this type of activity.
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Post by wanderer on Oct 7, 2009 13:55:51 GMT
FWOOSH! ;D
What? That was my first thought about today's strip. My second was "Aha! Gotcha now."
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Post by Rasselas on Oct 7, 2009 13:58:20 GMT
And to forestall todd's revisiting the "we don't know for sure yet if it is the teachers" -- we've discussed that point for weeks already in previous threads. Perhaps in this thread we should just take that conclusion as a given for the sake of the discussion. Well, I'm still holding out judgment on that one (though I understand what you mean). There's too many unclear points to conclude it was *just* a prank by the teachers, and also it would be lame. Actually, it occurs to me that it could've been meant as a prank, but in the meantime with the emergency coming up at the court, it got halted and messed up. In comes Annie to make an even bigger mess of it. I still want to see a real ghost though. And no, Mort won't do, not this time!! And even if the captors are *not* the teachers, the fake fire would still be a good thing to do, as it'd be the only way to alert teachers to the actual kidnappings taking place (Marcia may be a psychopath that only cares about the trees, but the fire brings teachers to the location that will actually care about the danger to human children too). Very good points. |
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Post by the bandit on Oct 7, 2009 14:28:53 GMT
Very Sun Tzu, Annie. Either that, I suppose, or Kat and Annie figured out that they (the captives) were inside Bob and Marcia's house, and then Annie recalled her blinker stone to make the fake flames herself, while Matt (that's Matt, by the way) draws Marcia out so that they can free the captives from inside the house. This is my understanding. |
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picaro
Junior Member
Dandy Highwayman
Posts: 66
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Post by picaro on Oct 7, 2009 14:58:03 GMT
I'm a little disturbed that Marcia shares my family name. She got the family temper too by the looks of things.
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Post by seitosilver on Oct 7, 2009 15:30:29 GMT
I kind of thought that the kids are being held in some room in the house and the only reason they told Marcia that the fire was at the Young monument is because it's known that the laser cows don't maintain that area.
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Post by Casey on Oct 7, 2009 16:02:18 GMT
I kind of thought that the kids are being held in some room in the house and the only reason they told Marcia that the fire was at the Young monument is because it's known that the laser cows don't maintain that area. This is a good point. It's the only place that Marcia would be able to believe that a real fire could break out, without wondering what happened to the laser cows. Very astute observation on your part, and on Annie's part for (apparently) thinking of that as well. |
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