[1446] "Look at her."

[Chendzee'a]

I figured I'd give it a go and quit lurking.

Look at her

[Elysium]

Annie's brain status: does not compute.

[Chancellor]

A curious arrangement.

[Nepycros]

Annie, you've still got the Green Giant back in the forest to look forward to. All is not lost!

[fwip]

Jack has his shit together, despite speculation at the beginning of the chapter.

Tying up loose ends.

My faith in Jack's good judgement and sensitivity towards Zimmy was not misplaced!

SPOILER: Click to show

Dec 15, 2014 8:21:06 GMT fwip said:

Dec 15, 2014 8:07:06 GMT SilverbackRon said:

I was wondering why no one had started a thread yet.  I was about to stop waiting and do it myself 

Anyhow, interesting how Zimmy seemed like she was about to thank Jack, but he didn't want to hear it.  Then he admits he still loves her?  Odd.

Love makes you act in strange ways, indeed.

I think that he was about to thank Jack, and Jack brushed it off because he knew that she didn't feel comfortable thanking him - possibly acknowledging the thanks before the fact.

[wynne]

In which Jack is actually quite sensible.

"I'm in love with someone else [who has a demonic version of Birmingham trapped in their head]" generally isn't the best basis for a relationship, but he's respecting Zimmy's boundaries, both parties know what they're getting into, and sometimes you just have to try and move on, even if you aren't sure you can at the moment. Four for you, Jack.

[sapientcoffee]

One thing I like in GKC is that teens aren't reduced to being only hormonal idiots.

[arf]

After the last couple of panels, Annie is starting to look a little emotionally isolated. Hope we don't get a repeat of what happened at the end of last year. (Rey? A-ffection!)

[fish]

Sept 17, 2014 9:42:54 GMT fish said:

Heh, now I imagine Jack telling his classmates stories about Zimmingham to give them a scare; Jenny heard one of those fascinating tales and got interested in this charming young man...

Aha! I was right, Jenny pursued him. Though Jack probably did not brag about his experiences with Zimminham.

[alexsl]

I guess the take home here is that quite a lot of Antimony's schoolmates are emotionally more mature than she is. But we knew that.

(They may also have the additional advantage of not being part fire elemental. "But still, deep inside you, do you sometimes feel your temper flaring?")

[Jelly Jellybean]

Dec 17, 2014 8:19:36 GMT sapientcoffee said:

One thing I like in GKC is that teens aren't reduced to being only hormonal idiots.

In GKC, it is just the occasional fox and the odd robot that are ... well... reduced to being idiots.


So it didn't occur to Annie that she could ask a guy out?  Sounds like she has a bit of Brinnie in her.  Hey, maybe Brinnie is really Annie's father!

[TBeholder]

Okay, Jenny is into "brilliant, but tragic brooding anti-hero" sort - that's probably normal for a goth-y girl.
And then Jack just... somehow failed to notice when Jenny tried on makeup with which she happens to resemble Zimmy closer, ri-i-ight.

Dec 17, 2014 8:12:30 GMT fwip said:

Jack has his shit together, despite speculation at the beginning of the chapter.

Yeah. Which doesn't mean he's telling all the truth. What's with "whatever".
Or that he's not fooling himself even a little...

[Fishy]

Okay. So I'm not crazy...

Uhhh... that white spot on Zimmy's shirt is appearing... It just started fading in over the last two pages...

[zbeeblebrox]

Annie: suddenly realizing that's a thing she could have done.

[matoyak]

Dec 17, 2014 10:07:39 GMT alexsl said:

I guess the take home here is that quite a lot of Antimony's schoolmates are emotionally more mature than she is. But we knew that.

(They may also have the additional advantage of not being part fire elemental. "But still, deep inside you, do you sometimes feel your temper flaring?")

They also tend to have the added benefits of having grown up in a less unusual situation. Spending the majority of your young childhood in a hospital, hanging out with psychopomps, getting hostile feelings from her father (and later direct emotional manipulation, as well as possibly etheric manipulation [depending on how one takes that chapter where Zimmy mind-delves into Annie]) while still being told that he loves her (not at all a mixed message to send to a young girl), then realizing all the people she'd been spending time talking to had died, and then having to take her own mother across... I suspect the part fire elemental aspect of her has less to do with her emotional immaturity than her life experiences. (Or maaaaybe more accurately the lack thereof?)

Dec 17, 2014 10:15:59 GMT Jelly Jellybean said:

<snip>So it didn't occur to Annie that she could ask a guy out?

I don't quite think that's what her reaction is about. I think it's more "Oh. Well then. That's...interesting."

Oh, and hello everyone. Been a member of the forum since 2010, lurked around for a while after joining...then apparently forgot about the forum, and only came looking for it again in the past month or two. Been lurking around for a bit since I found it again. Figured I might as well start posting.

EDIT: Borked BBCode.

[zimmyzims]

Okay, already a second page without Rey. No cookies for me!

[Lightice]

Dec 17, 2014 8:05:42 GMT Nepycros said:

Annie, you've still got the Green Giant back in the forest to look forward to. All is not lost!

Sorry, but nope. He has a girlfriend, too.

Anyway, now I want to know how Jenny helped Jack out -- and even more importantly, what she, Zimmy and Gamma are talking about.

[phyzome]

Jack and Jenny are a lot more emotionally mature (at least in that way) than a lot of people I know. :-)

[darlos9d]

Dec 17, 2014 14:03:22 GMT Lightice said:

Dec 17, 2014 8:05:42 GMT Nepycros said:

Annie, you've still got the Green Giant back in the forest to look forward to. All is not lost!

Sorry, but nope. He has a girlfriend, too.

Anyway, now I want to know how Jenny helped Jack out -- and even more importantly, what she, Zimmy and Gamma are talking about.

My take away was that Jenny helped Jack with his mixed up feelings specifically. Not sure if we really need specifics beyond that.

Now I wonder if Jenny thinks/knows she's second string in Jack's heart, or if Jacks affection towards her is actually considerable. He does sound a bit casual in regards to their relationship.

Then again, I don't put a lot of stake in BURNING PASSIONATE LOVE, so to me, that could be fine.

[ctso74]

Good on you, Jack.

Annie seems to be just taking all the relationships stuff in. I'm guessing we'll see, whether she's fine with being by herself, or if the weight of romantic isolation/peer pressure is heavy for her.

[alpacalypse]

Look at us, discussing the emotional maturity of fictional teenagers.

That being said, I think Annie really just wants more close friends like Kat, but who aren't forest creatures. And if said friend can be someone she can hug and smooch, well thats just a bonus. This is what I think mostly from when she caught Kat and Paz kissing and how she felt that she was losing Kat. Besides the fact that Annie grew up in an abnormal environment, she hasn't really had any close friends her own age and species for most of her life and she just wants to fill a social need that Kat has been filling since Annie arrived at the court.

[SilverbackRon]

All things considered, I am rather impressed with Jack's attitude.  Toward Zimmy, making sure he gives her the space she needs and without the pressure.  And toward Jenny too.  Nice that he has someone he can talk to about the things he has been through.

I also think it is amusing, his attitude of If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with    Good on them I say!

[gary]

Dec 17, 2014 16:21:05 GMT alpacalypse said:

Look at us, discussing the emotional maturity of fictional teenagers.

That being said, I think Annie really just wants more close friends like Kat, but who aren't forest creatures. And if said friend can be someone she can hug and smooch, well thats just a bonus. This is what I think mostly from when she caught Kat and Paz kissing and how she felt that she was losing Kat. Besides the fact that Annie grew up in an abnormal environment, she hasn't really had any close friends her own age and species for most of her life and she just wants to fill a social need that Kat has been filling since Annie arrived at the court.

I can buy that that's what Annie needs, I'm not sure it's what she actually wants right now.

Her freak out about kat and paz seemed to be at least partly about her recognising that she is a, as kat put it, 'hard person to be friends with' and the fear that the next time she inevitably does something stupid and drive away kat (like the time they fought because of alistar which she brought up), kat won't need to come back as she'll have paz to lean on instead.

There is a reason why Annie is so quick to forgive the likes of Renard and Ysengrin who have hurt her and I think it's probably at least partly that with mort and renard and kat she often ends up in a position where she has to be forgiven by then so she recognises the power of that forgiveness.

I think she is someone who has a very strong idea of herself as someone who is hard to be friends with and so is reluctant to reach out for friends, in a way that is different from being completely unsocial. When she does reach out for friends, it tends to be towards people who are outside of that immediate social structure (mort, shadow, robot, ysengrin etc). (And when they hurt her and she gets angry with them (see mort and renard) one of the things she does is exagerate their social outcastness in her mind mort 'isn't a boy he's just a ghost', renard 'killed that man just like you were going to kill me" so that they're worthless and so she is justified in what she does to them).

So, yes I can believe that Annie desperately needs more close friends of her own age and species but I don't think she herself would think that. See for instance her innocent declaration that she's going to the ball with kat and paz which seemed entirely free of longing for a different outcome.

[aaroncampbell]

What with the clothing changes and all this, I'm thinking that Randy's simulators have just gotten a some upgrades is all. This is just a bit of Chapters 10 and 23 mashed up with 12 and 24.
("Doctor Disaster" and "Terror Castle of the Jupiter Moon Martians" meets "Mainly Involves Robots" and "Residential".)
I wouldn't be surprised if the entire situation were being monitored by the Court, or at least Jones. There certainly has been precedent, even if it hasn't been a simulation.

[alpacalypse]

Dec 17, 2014 18:44:09 GMT gary said:

Dec 17, 2014 16:21:05 GMT alpacalypse said:

Look at us, discussing the emotional maturity of fictional teenagers.

That being said, I think Annie really just wants more close friends like Kat, but who aren't forest creatures. And if said friend can be someone she can hug and smooch, well thats just a bonus. This is what I think mostly from when she caught Kat and Paz kissing and how she felt that she was losing Kat. Besides the fact that Annie grew up in an abnormal environment, she hasn't really had any close friends her own age and species for most of her life and she just wants to fill a social need that Kat has been filling since Annie arrived at the court.

I can buy that that's what Annie needs, I'm not sure it's what she actually wants right now.

I don't really think Annie knows what she wants. I do agree with you on the forgiveness aspect, although I think its part of her nature as a medium to be a bit more forgiving in addition to her recognizing she can be a difficult person to be friends with and needing to be forgiven for things she does. As for going with Kat and Paz to the dance, there hasn't been any new or old boys who I think she would have wanted to go with, especially since Jack was there and I think she has been very concious of her past with him and how aware she is that she doesn't really know how to make friends normally.

[Daedalus]

I suspect that Annie's expression in the last panel matches that of some of our forum-goers about this page

[keef]

Dec 17, 2014 22:55:42 GMT Daedalus said:

I suspect that Annie's expression in the last panel matches that of some of our forum-goers about this page

How did you know?

[todd]

Dec 17, 2014 19:42:43 GMT aaroncampbell said:

What with the clothing changes and all this, I'm thinking that Randy's simulators have just gotten a some upgrades is all. This is just a bit of Chapters 10 and 23 mashed up with 12 and 24.
("Doctor Disaster" and "Terror Castle of the Jupiter Moon Martians" meets "Mainly Involves Robots" and "Residential".)
I wouldn't be surprised if the entire situation were being monitored by the Court, or at least Jones. There certainly has been precedent, even if it hasn't been a simulation.

Except then it's not really an advancement of the "Kat-cenetered robot religion" thread that's been a major part of the comic for some time.

The Enigmarons and the "ghost" in "Residential" were one-shot characters that had nothing to do with the major plot-threads.

More likely the changes are just inadvertent goof-ups in Tom coloring the comic (he's mentioned in the past that art details that readers mistook for something significant were really errors on his part).

[Elysium]

Dec 17, 2014 19:42:43 GMT aaroncampbell said:

I wouldn't be surprised if the entire situation were being monitored by the Court, or at least Jones. There certainly has been precedent, even if it hasn't been a simulation.

Again, the whole purpose of that "precedent" was to track down Jack and neutralize him, here it's just a cruise that has been hijacked, there's no benefit for the court in this situation.

[Aurelia Verity]

When we are kids, most of us have a very preconceived understanding of relationships. Boy and girl like one another, boy asks out girl, girl agrees, boy and girl date, marry and have a family. Cycle repeats. Even if a child’s own family does not follow this set up it is still often the norm to them. As we age our understanding of human relationships (hopefully) broadens. And Annie’s and ours is being broadened throughout the comic.

So far we have:

Mr and Mrs Donlan/Bob and Marcia/Margo and John/Parley and Smitty/Kat and Paz – open and well balanced love, both have different talents but converging interests, no one owes anyone anything. (Robot and shadow may also fit)

Zimmy and Gamma – dependent love, one partner heavily dependent on the other to survive and function

Jones and Eglamore – platonic love, partnership and friendship of many years, changing in nature as one party ages

Diago and Jeanne – Unrequited love, worst possible scenario; Diego becomes heavily embittered towards Jeanne and destroys her

Jack and Zimmy – Unrequited love, best possible scenario; Jack holds no ill will towards Zimmy, tries his best to help her but does not push his affections onto her. It’s possible Jack questions his infatuation with Zimmy, uncertain if it's genuine or only a side effect to his “illness”

Jack and Jenny – unpossessive love, Jenny is fully aware of Jack’s attraction to another person but accepts it and continues with the relationship. Doesn’t resent either Jack or Zimmy.

Renard and Surma – Falsified love, one party encourages the other only to further the plans and needs of others. Manipulation backfires and innocent people suffer.

Eglamore and Surma – Love lost, one person is unable to, after many years, forget or move on from an ended relationship. Eglamore also seems to view Annie largely as an extension of Surma

Renard and Annie – Paternal love spurred by guilt. Renard, however, sees Annie as separate from Surma but still likes her and so cares for her.

Janet and Winsbury – Secret love, part of the fun and excitement of which is the secrecy itself