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Post by todd on Nov 26, 2018 0:27:07 GMT
Has this been suggested before? What if the point of all this (Loup, court attack, 2 Annies) was a "life-lesson" for Annie cooked up by Coyote? The lesson being that the only way for Annie to really be her best self was to fully accept her fire-elemental side and the anger that goes with it... it is a source of resilience and strength. Coyote in a way would be underlining something Ys had already tried to convey. If I remember correctly, only when Annie gets mad at Loup and tries to flame him, only then does she fully heal the cut to the elemental and all her hair seem to lengthen (2037-38), though her side bangs had been growing previously. At the "flame-on", the fire elemental is no longer cut, and afterwards, the back of Annie's hair starts growing at an accelerated rate (2042 ... as long as her t-shirt arms, 2044... mid-back, 2046... back to about normal). Is Loup a nemesis Coyote has set up to help Annie reintegrate? Then her "double" (however created) court!Annie demonstrates what happens if Annie never fully reconciles with her file elemental side. Loup(Coyote/Ys) using a split timeline to show Annie two life-paths.... crazy? Ideally, that revelation (assuming it to be the truth) should be followed by someone saying to Coyote (presumably back from the dead somehow), "But couldn't you have given the life-lesson to Annie without carrying out all that destruction?" Coyote replies, "Yes, but the other ways weren't as interesting."
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Post by Timberwere on Nov 26, 2018 7:57:33 GMT
The post-apocalyptic setting of the Tea pages was brought about (or will be brought about) by the culmination of the Court's big experiments in the future, which turn out to have a devastating effect upon the entire region. In series, a list of Tom & Tea's summer holiday pages:
The biomes here are diverse enough to make me think that the entire world is affected, not just one region. Also, the planes plus the stargazing are making me think of an alien invasion or other "cosmic" event some sort - which doesn't rule out your theory! All those experiments could just be attracting something from beyond the stars, whether accidentally or on purpose I'm not sure. (Also these pages are all pretty clearly non-canon so it might be kind of silly to speculate on it. Oh well.)
By the way: Do we know (or have any guesses) who the brown-haired boy pictured in the holiday pages is?
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Post by madjack on Nov 26, 2018 8:01:48 GMT
It's Tom, he explicitly confirmed in an interview somewhere, hence why the character always has his back turned or is out of focus since he doesn't want to bring himself into the story. Edit: Just hunted through his twitter but the soundcloud link for the interview doesn't work anymore. Edit again: Found it on their website: english.mnsu.edu/weeklyreader/sounds/2018/siddelltom.mp3Pretty sure it's that one.
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Post by Timberwere on Nov 26, 2018 8:33:07 GMT
It's Tom, he explicitly confirmed in an interview somewhere, hence why the character always has his back turned or is out of focus since he doesn't want to bring himself into the story.
Ah, thank you!
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Post by Per on Nov 26, 2018 9:38:58 GMT
Loup has sent Annie into a future gradually revealed to have Gone Horribly Right for the Court in some manner, perhaps it's Powered By A Forsaken Plushie/The Dearly Departed or something like that. Once this fully sinks in, Annie is rubberbanded back to the present with a determination to change/not allow certain things in the Court that may play into Loup's favour. Thus can the alt-future scenario with its Duplicate Protagonist and Unwitnessed Character Development be discarded while still having a lasting effect on Annie's motivations and the narrative context at large.
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Post by madjack on Nov 26, 2018 13:09:37 GMT
Another thought bouncing around that recent discussion has poked:
I wonder if Anthony actually did find a way to keep Surma alive after passing the flame, but since she lost her capacity to feel anything, stopped the treatment.
If one of the Annies takes all the fire for herself, she might have to watch herself wither away like her mother did.
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Post by netherdan on Nov 29, 2018 13:55:48 GMT
All this talk of robots and time travel clicks with an idea about the shield I've had rattling around for a while: Nobody stole Anja's shield tech and put it in the robots. It was put there in the initial design of the newer generations by... Anja herself. Panel 4. The robot even has a pendant modelled into it. Why Anja would be 'entombed' in an ancient robot is a mystery, but if something like that happened I don't think she'd be the only one. Given the interaction in panel 2 on that same page, could the robot Kat woke up have been Donny? Are you suggesting that this robot is Anja herself and that's why Kat is part RoboGoddess?
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Post by madjack on Nov 29, 2018 15:21:22 GMT
All this talk of robots and time travel clicks with an idea about the shield I've had rattling around for a while: Nobody stole Anja's shield tech and put it in the robots. It was put there in the initial design of the newer generations by... Anja herself. Panel 4. The robot even has a pendant modelled into it. Why Anja would be 'entombed' in an ancient robot is a mystery, but if something like that happened I don't think she'd be the only one. Given the interaction in panel 2 on that same page, could the robot Kat woke up have been Donny? Are you suggesting that this robot is Anja herself and that's why Kat is part RoboGoddess? Not quite, I'm suggesting that robot is what Anja will become. I've only got half formed ideas about how/why it would happen at the moment though, so it's on my wildspec backburner.
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Post by pyradonis on Nov 29, 2018 16:15:21 GMT
Are you suggesting that this robot is Anja herself and that's why Kat is part RoboGoddess? Not quite, I'm suggesting that robot is what Anja will become. I've only got half formed ideas about how/why it would happen at the moment though, so it's on my wildspec backburner. Wouldn't they need to travel to the past AND lose their memories then?
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Post by jda on Nov 29, 2018 20:37:17 GMT
Not quite, I'm suggesting that robot is what Anja will become. I've only got half formed ideas about how/why it would happen at the moment though, so it's on my wildspec backburner. Wouldn't they need to travel to the past AND lose their memories then? Adding (somehow, I think) to this wildspec, these pages: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=398www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=399Anja seems to be nostalgic about the adventure ; What if she really is not able to go to the Tomb, like, for not having completed its task yet? Or for not creating a Time/Space paradox? Robofather knows about that limitation, and that it could be lifted by someone ("You could always ask...") but she refuses because "their time has passed", although he thinks "they have some life still". What if all the grownups GROW into being Robots, and some, maybe the most etheric, or the most important ones go into the Tomb? And their (only) purpose is to create and Prepare their offspring as the new GKC generation? Ps: I've always wondered about the look of despair on Kat's parents on these pages...
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Post by madjack on Nov 30, 2018 2:33:36 GMT
That's a good chunk of the reasoning behind it. Other ones are Kat studying Rey's contract with the new robot's code (note the sugar cube) and the arrow working in the same way as the original 'golem' robots. What good are giving instructions to a golem without any will or intelligence to carry them out? I think the contract and parts of the robot code will end up being significant because they'll be the same thing: Since you have no 'say' over something that isn't yours, the golem robots were souls bound to something they didn't own, thus had no say over and were forced to obey. The arrow was simply a weaponised version of these except it worked on two souls that had given themselves to the other. The heart's etheric programming would suppress (erase?) the original personality and memories. Based on that + what jda posted, I'm hypothesising that at some point in the future something will get so screwed up that some of the adults, with the help of the Omega project or perhaps even Loup/Coyote if he's back, will have to go back to the founding to set things up and some will have to take the long road back in the only form that would have the longevity to survive the centuries, even if it is a fate worse than death for a while.
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Post by madjack on Nov 30, 2018 2:43:32 GMT
This also lead to another fairly horrible thought: What if that method of robot creation didn't stop? It could explain why the Court doesn't want anything bridging the machine mind and human body... And why there really is separation between the school houses: They don't want people asking where the Foley kids who don't get Court jobs go.. And why they don't get names until they do get jobs. That would also explain why they've headcrabbed the current robots instead of making new ones: with no more contact with the Forest, they can't.
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Post by netherdan on Dec 3, 2018 22:29:19 GMT
2 pages after: ♪Staaaand and deliver your money or your loife!♫
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Post by netherdan on Dec 3, 2018 22:31:57 GMT
So far we've met random dudes, a weird feminine and seemingly depressed Kat, an even weirder version of Annie that apparently managed to master robot arm surgery in less than 6 months, a regular Tony (and not the broken man whose social skills are inversely proportional to the number of people in the room, the one we're used to), greencrabbed robots... If we meet someone Annie did not possibly mention to Coyote I'll dismiss the simulation theory but until then I'll hang here over the fence
Side note - Possible inspirations for the made up versions: 1) Random security dudes: it's the Court; 2) Feminine, seemingly depressed Kat: the bird guy that almost became her boyfriend, he might be a depressed bird that Coyote might have talked to; 3) Better Annie: that's Loup trying to break Annie; 4) Dad of the year Tony: same as 3, plus Coyote didn't know the extent of Tony's personality; 5) Greencrabbed robots: it's the Court².
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Post by jda on Dec 3, 2018 23:10:34 GMT
2 pages after: ♪Staaaand and deliver your money or your loife!♫ Literally a good catch!
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Post by todd on Dec 16, 2018 0:15:18 GMT
The reason why the Court's experiments are threatening the Forest (cf. Loup's statement in "Neither") is that the Court is trying to quantify the etheric world, converting its phenomena into an exact science. But the "magic" of Gilltie Wood is rooted in being unquantifiable, wild, chaotic - so this treatment would be the antithesis of its being. Magic explained ceases to be magic. Hence, the Court's endeavors would (if completed) be the death-blow to the etheric world, and this is what Loup meant (maybe not working out the exact reason why, but he's not in the most stable condition at present).
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Post by speedwell on Dec 16, 2018 19:04:24 GMT
We've always seen Annie and Surma referred to as a fire elemental. Nowhere in the comic is it stated or even implied that there is only one fire elemental. The Forest denizens even recognise her as one of a type. Just the fact that someone is a fire elemental does not mean she is "the real Annie".
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Post by saardvark on Dec 16, 2018 19:33:18 GMT
We've always seen Annie and Surma referred to as a fire elemental. Nowhere in the comic is it stated or even implied that there is only one fire elemental. The Forest denizens even recognise her as one of a type. Just the fact that someone is a fire elemental does not mean she is "the real Annie". Interesting... so are you proposing that one of the Annies is a fusion of a fire elemental from the Forest and perhaps some part of Annie lacking her elemental? The Forest fire elemental would probably have been forced by Loup into such a fusion against its will... possibly explaining the wonky, tattered appearance of Court!Annie's elemental, since the elemental is trapped unwillingly in Court!Annie. In turn, this implies that the more "real" Annie (consisting of most of normal-space Annie and all of her elemental) is Forest!Annie.
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Post by bgb16999 on Dec 17, 2018 1:14:55 GMT
Here's my speculation:
Coyote's tooth will be the key to stopping Loup. Coyote planned this in advance, and this is the reason he gave Annie the tooth in the first place. The reason Coyote didn't want Annie to tell Ysengrin about his tooth when she was staying in the forest was because he didn't want Loup to know about it.
The memory that Coyote gave to Parley and Smitty is Coyote's own memory of giving his tooth to Annie.
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Post by DonDueed on Dec 17, 2018 2:54:01 GMT
Here's my speculation: The memory that Coyote gave to Parley and Smitty is Coyote's own memory of giving his tooth to Annie. That and/or the memory of who he is. We've seen him forget that he's Coyote before (or so he said, anyway).
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Post by netherdan on Dec 17, 2018 21:37:50 GMT
Here's my speculation: The memory that Coyote gave to Parley and Smitty is Coyote's own memory of giving his tooth to Annie. That and/or the memory of who he is. We've seen him forget that he's Coyote before (or so he said, anyway). The goose bone being the tale of the dead goose itself and the lake water being "himself" (according to Coyote apud Parley), so before departing CoyoteReborn kinda made a copy of all his might and gave it to her as a sign of appreciation for our big teleporter wonderwoman, so that he can restore himself. But that plan can still backfire if the itens aren't used in the right order, which I think is bone > water since Loup could acquire the full length of Coyote's amazingness without "remembering" he is Coyote and in doing so deducting the rest of the plan and destroying the bone
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Post by pyradonis on Dec 17, 2018 23:10:05 GMT
This has been speculated by so many people now, it is not even "wild" anymore. xD
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Post by speedwell on Dec 18, 2018 17:25:43 GMT
We've always seen Annie and Surma referred to as a fire elemental. Nowhere in the comic is it stated or even implied that there is only one fire elemental. The Forest denizens even recognise her as one of a type. Just the fact that someone is a fire elemental does not mean she is "the real Annie". Interesting... so are you proposing that one of the Annies is a fusion of a fire elemental from the Forest and perhaps some part of Annie lacking her elemental? The Forest fire elemental would probably have been forced by Loup into such a fusion against its will... possibly explaining the wonky, tattered appearance of Court!Annie's elemental, since the elemental is trapped unwillingly in Court!Annie. In turn, this implies that the more "real" Annie (consisting of most of normal-space Annie and all of her elemental) is Forest!Annie. I'm not proposing that, but I'm not NOT proposing that. One of the clear characteristics of Fire is that it can be separated into two pieces and rejoined without affecting its nature, structure, identity, or function. I don't think that either Annie is the "true" or "false" one; I am quite prepared to admit they are simply separated. I don't see any reason to believe that Annie is half or even part fire elemental, in fact, unless the state of being a fire elemental means having a piece of a greater Elemental Fire that all fire elementals are a part of. It seems strange but oddly appropriate to think that Annie may not be unique. She well could share her life essence with all other fire elementals, which could be one reason why there is nothing to take into the afterlife... it's not in any sense dead in toto. Therefore another fire elemental, by virtue of being part of the same whole and the same substance, might actually be able to take on the role of another Annie-instance.
Other than that, the most I can say with any certainty is that "hair" is an alchemical term for life energy, something that we basically already knew.
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Post by warrl on Dec 18, 2018 20:58:12 GMT
But Annie said (or at least strongly implied) that she DID take her mother into the afterlife. Which means there was something TO take into the afterlife. But they need a fire-elemental psychopomp - the regular human- and insect-oriented ones are apparently blind in that part of the spectrum.
(now I'm wondering: when Annie goes on an ethereal jaunt, can the usual psychopomps see her?)
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novia
Full Member
Posts: 227
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Post by novia on Dec 18, 2018 23:10:18 GMT
I always see her as the counterweight to Coyote: the way he is 100% born from the ether and gets all of his power from there, Jones is the absolute opposite of it. But then I cannot explain why Coyote would best her in a fight, like Tom said. Coyote can pluck the moon from space and alter the landscape with a move of his paw. Jones is indestructible and stronger than current measuring equipment can record without being destroyed, but she never seemed to move very fast and Coyote fights dirty. I imagine he would "win" a fight with by doing something like stopping time, picking her up (she is heavy like stone, but not more, or else she would have broken Parley's bed whent standing on it) and hurling her out of the atmosphere far away into space, maybe even drop her into a black hole. Was reading through old wildspec posts. Did you get cookies for this one yet?
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Post by DonDueed on Dec 19, 2018 3:31:44 GMT
OK, here goes my first attempt at a wildspec...
One of the two Annies ends up as a ghost, replacing Jeanne as the enforcer of the Annan Waters barrier. The tech behind Diego's arrow is used (if not the arrow itself).
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Post by warrl on Dec 19, 2018 8:20:00 GMT
OK, here goes my first attempt at a wildspec... One of the two Annies ends up as a ghost, replacing Jeanne as the enforcer of the Annan Waters barrier. The tech behind Diego's arrow is used (if not the arrow itself). We have contradictory reports from two psychopomps on whether part-fire-elementals even have ghosts. (Muut says they have nothing to escort into the ether; Antimony says she escorted her mother into the ether.) And you'd think they would know. I suspect that Diego's arrow would not work on Annie - although maybe it could be re-tuned... but I don't think Katrina would be willing to do the work.
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Post by todd on Dec 19, 2018 12:33:28 GMT
Not to mention that the barrier no longer even exists.
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Post by DonDueed on Dec 19, 2018 14:24:14 GMT
Not to mention that the barrier no longer even exists. Well, I left out a lot of details from my previous post. Let me fill things in a bit.
My basic thought was, how does the Court (or, from the Doylean perspective, how does Tom) deal with the "problem" of two Annies. There have been a number of suggestions: reintegration, or keeping both Annies, or making one of them a psychopomp and the other a Mom, and so on.
But we also have the problem of no Jeanne to enforce the Court/Wood barrier. So maybe one of the Annies could take on that role.
Of course, as you point out, a number of things would have to happen first. The Annan gorge would have to be restored, so this implies that Loup gets re-divided into Coyote and Ysengrin. There have already been some good speculations on how that might happen. Presumably Coyote would want to restore the gorge he'd originally created.
Then, some decision would have to be reached about how to replace the guardian (previously Jeanne). We've seen the Court make despicable decisions in the past (Jeanne again) so it's certainly conceivable they'd simply repeat that act, especially since they have an "extra" Annie hanging around. Alternatively, a guilty-feeling ForestAnnie might volunteer her services to keep the peace.
And of course, as pointed out above, Kat or someone else would have to understand the tech behind Diego's arrow to actually make it work.
I'm not saying this is a likely direction for Tom to take, but this is the wildspec thread after all.
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Post by todd on Dec 20, 2018 0:09:56 GMT
One other big obstacle; Jeanne having a lover was crucial to the plan; her defense was powered by her fury and hatred over his murder in front of her, channeled into fighting and killing anyone and everyone who came near her. Annie doesn't have a love interest, meaning the Court would lack a key component. It'd make "better sense" to kill Andrew in front of Parley and have that turn her into a vengeance-crazed ghost (all the more so because Parley had served as a foil for Jeanne from "The Coward Heart" on).
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