Post by imaginaryfriend on Apr 9, 2019 10:24:34 GMT
Right. So, the plot of chapter 70 revolves around a plan to abduct one or more Antimony Carvers that one or more of the gang was involved in plotting. The title of said chapter is "Dealing With HER" which is nebulous since it could easily refer to one of several gurls depending on who is doing the dealing. What exactly the plan was isn't explicitly stated but it did have goals and apparently changed greatly during various stages of planning... but I believe that we can infer a great deal about it from putting the pieces together in the proper order.
Two pages in we get our first hint that there is planning going on as Renard tells Fannie (forest Annie) that the gang had considered staging a "false kidnapping" for her but decided that it might be too distressing and also that she might set them on fire, presumably during but possibly after the false kidnapping was staged. At first read I assumed that Renard was talking about some sort of excuse that the kids were going to create to get Fannie out of bed and home in the middle of the night as opposed to risking getting caught by simply sneaking.
On the next page William tells Fannie that they are supposed to take Fannie to see Kat and "the other Annie" (emphasis his; hereafter I will refer that Annie as Courtnie, for Court Annie) and that they want to know if she (Fannie?) is really real. However the plan that unfolds seems to have nothing whatsoever with determining the realness of either Courtnie or Fannie. Fannie non-verbally convinces William and Janet that she knows their secret which prompts them to endorse her real-ness but the important part here is what was, at least at some stage, probably the goal (or a goal).
The very next page Paz does something very unusual for Paz. When she gets (or engineers) a moment alone with Fannie she grabs her by the arm and informs her that Kat tries very hard for her and that whatever she (Fannie) is she will not do anything to make her (Kat) upset. In the context of Paz's facial expressions and the forceful arm-gripping it appears that there is an implicit threat that should Fannie make Kat upset, some sort of bad thing might happen. In order to understand what this means it needs to be placed into the proper context. Though we did not know it until the message-seed-thinger arrived, some time has passed since the last chapter. Courtnie was last seen leaving for Kat's house in a huff and it is not clear if she came back at all in the interm. It reasonably follows that Courtnie spent at least some time talking to Kat about Fannie about the situation in general and the incident with the favorite jumper in particular. What is less clear is what she talks about later.
Kat and Antimony have been friends for a long time. They've had issues before, most notably Ch. 32. Antimony's adventures (or problems) have periodically caused Kat some distress but I think it is reasonable to believe that this time around something happened which caused Kat to react abnormally, which caused Paz to act abnormally. Though she is clearly picking up on the tension between the Antimonies, Kat seems to be dealing with the Antimony surplus very well when she was last in the comic. I think it follows that something happened between chapters and the most likely cause would have to be something Courtnie said or did that was atypical for Antimony Carver, though perhaps understandable given the situation. Further, I think it's rational to assume that someone (probably Courtnie but outside chance of Janet) sought Kat's help in somehow disproving Fannie's "real-ness" and lost patience with the fruitless discussion of philosophy and situational ethics and suggested doing something that Kat would balk at, apparently something involving abduction and confinement as a starting point.
At what point the rest of the gang became involved in the plan is unclear. Paz cohabits with Kat so she was likely in early, perhaps even present for the initial conversation between Kat and Courtnie. Why the others are present at all when they had little role if any in the final version of the plan is also unclear but has disturbing implications. As friends they could be lures of some sort, or they could be muscle; William is bigger than Fannie and Janet is good with a bow. Maybe Courtnie was just rounding up mutual friends to get them all on her side for moral support or for some sort of collective shunning or condemning of Fannie, or maybe they just got wrapped up in the situation coincidentally as concerned bystanders who live in the same general area. Given the overall nature of the comic and the fact that Margo has been included I choose to believe it's one or both of the latter options but given the starting point and what Antimony is capable of I can't discard the other possibilities entirely.
During that or a subsequent discussion we do know that the issue of Fannie burning someone during the "fake kidnapping" was raised and the initial plan was modified on those and possibly other grounds. Fannie was peacefully taken by the gang to a "secondary location," an isolated farmhouse. There George maneuvers behind the twins and teleports the three of them to the air raid shelter. This was not part of the revised plan as far as Courtnie knew, as she complains to George about Kat not telling her about "this." What "this" may be isn't clear but Courtnie probably means her accompanying George and Fannie to the shelter and the "you have one hour to work out your problems" bit. Courtnie proceeds to explore the shelter quickly; maybe she has knows something about it or maybe she is just eager to do something other than stand around with Fannie.
Why the bunker? Why the isolated farmhouse? There is a Court-wide state of emergency. That impacted the site selection, as April 8th's comic indicated via George's dialogue. It's reasonable to assume that Kat and/or George 1. selected a location far enough away from any red or yellow zones that she believed that there was no chance of the Antimonies and Cvet encountering hostile creatures and 2. was capable of at least temporarily restraining an Antimony. Kat hopefully checked (or had George and/or Cvet check) the air raid shelter and (probably) the flood tunnels to make sure there was no sign of creature activity or any other source of danger beforehand. Additional considerations probably included the farmhouse as a convenient and unoccupied support site, but the isolation may have been a factor also. Even if she and George just went by records and maps and didn't check any of the places seen in the comic prior to their use, I figure Cvet at least would have wanted to go to the tunnels and shelter and make sure she could fit through the doors she needed to, and by doing so get a feel for the environment which would have amounted to a safety check in any case.
And that brings me to one of my main beefs about the plan's final form. As the whole Court is a conflict zone now that means there are actively hostile and intelligent creatures easily within a couple days walking distance for a human. The only guarantee that there wouldn't be a hostile encounter is what the creatures from the Wood have done in the past and whatever the Court has going for surveillance, which would hopefully be good for at least some warning but is probably limited since the robots are still mostly out of commission and would be mostly on the surface in any case. People (and creatures) do things for reasons but there's a difference between what an adversary has consistently done and what said adversary is capable of doing; an enemy's situation can change in ways that aren't apparent which can prompt a change in strategy or tactics without warning. That said, there's often a need to carry out training in places where there may be hostile people wandering around so I won't fault Kat or George for the place they selected. What I will take issue with is the apparent fact that nobody was monitoring what was happening and that Cvet either didn't or couldn't report back when the unexpected happened. I assume they thought Cvet would be responsible for the Antimonies' safety in the unlikely event that anyone/anything from the Wood was encountered. That's reasonable in the sense that Cvet is an associate Court protector, but Cvet should have reported in as soon as she had the opportunity to do so after she knew that there was ashray activity in the area and for some reason didn't or couldn't, which is a problem. Even if the ashray presented no threat whatsoever the sudden intrusion of the root into the complex is a move by "Loup" who is the enemy commander and that is major news. I'm guessing she didn't have a means to do so and that's the fault of whoever did the planning. Yes, George can teleport, but that's not a substitute for two-way communication.
What about the danger that the Antimony twins presented to Cvet and each other? We are not in a great position to judge that but I agree that we have to assume that since the plan went forward that the danger on this count was, in George's and Kat's mind, minimal or negligible. Cvet has had some training for sure, and maybe she's had a lot since we have no idea how old she is or how long she's been training (maybe hundreds of years). Cvet is almost certainly stealthy and can maybe run along ceilings and walls. She should also have the advantages of knowing what's going on in the plan and whatever preparation that she did (visiting the place or at least looking at a map, I assume). Maybe Cvet can turn invisible, maybe her hide is completely impervious to heat or even Courtnie's concentrated heat laser (which her remark about catching flame would suggest is not the case) and maybe she can manipulate objects or make sounds remotely. I've written about this already in a previous post so I won't repeat myself here but I will add that it's true that the Antimonies have a history of forgetting that they can look at stuff through the ether so maybe Cvet could have spooked them from a distance... for a short while, until one remembered that they can astral-travel or wondered if there might be a ghost or something etheric somewhere nearby and started scanning the entire area. But unless Cvet can stop time or effortlessly and instantly mind-control human-elemental hybrids, which I consider to be improbable, the problem is the lack of training that one or both of the twins have. Even if they're fully immune to each other's fire when actively trying to burn each other in a fight (which I'm not sure is the case) they could damage the environment in such a way as to harm each other or Cvet unless Cvet was shadowing them close enough to prevent it and because of the root-message I'm reasonably certain that couldn't be the case. So, the most sensible plan that I can think of would be to make the twins not want to fire on Cvet in the first place and not be under too much stress; more on this later.
Regarding the message from "Loup," if they weren't alone then would the message have happened? I don't think it's likely that the root-message could have been tricked by some ability that Cvet has since "Loup" is more powerful overall and familiar with most creatures that the Court might be using and because Cvet wasn't expecting it. Assuming the root-message wasn't fooled, then Cvet couldn't have been shadowing them closely at the time the message arrived. Where was she? I think there's three possibilities. 1. Cvet wasn't in the shelter level at all when the root-message happened but was waiting elsewhere and planning on entering later, either through a door or by teleporting with Parley. 2. Cvet was waiting elsewhere in the shelter level in a place of concealment or 3. Cvet was waiting in the flood tunnels for the twins to start exploring.
We do know (thanks to the next comic) that Cvet was shadowing the twins closely enough to overhear the conversation when they returned to the shelter level. If she had been waiting in the tunnels, which would have been a better place for her to maneuver and fly, then she may or may not have wound up on the opposite side of the twins from the ashray, and then either went up the hole or followed behind the ashray if she wanted to stay hidden. If Cvet was teleporting in then she might have missed the creation of the hole. The ashray was passing the twins on the steps so it is not possible to be completely sure but going up the hole would have caused Cvet to lose sight of the twins so I do not believe she would have chosen that. If Cvet was stationed farther back in the shelter, heard the noise of the ceiling collapsing, observed the ashray through the hole and decided there was no reason for immediate panic, and waited for the twins to come up the stairs, there would have been a good chance of the ashray detecting her. Either is possible but I think it is more likely that Cvet was down in the tunnels when the Carver twins teleported in, and then shadowed the girls and ashray up the stairs. She would have had more room to dodge and evade down there, but wouldn't it be better if the twins didn't want to attack her at all?
Instead of being an unseen menace or using some sort of trickery, why not just reveal herself? Courtnie looks as surprised by Cvet as Fannie. I think she didn't know about George getting a new partner. As either a curiosity or a potential ally in getting out of the tunnels, catching up to a shy or playful Rogat Orjack would require some effort, cornering one would probably require teamwork.
So there you have it, genteel forum-goers, the plan in three stages of development. Any thots?
Two pages in we get our first hint that there is planning going on as Renard tells Fannie (forest Annie) that the gang had considered staging a "false kidnapping" for her but decided that it might be too distressing and also that she might set them on fire, presumably during but possibly after the false kidnapping was staged. At first read I assumed that Renard was talking about some sort of excuse that the kids were going to create to get Fannie out of bed and home in the middle of the night as opposed to risking getting caught by simply sneaking.
On the next page William tells Fannie that they are supposed to take Fannie to see Kat and "the other Annie" (emphasis his; hereafter I will refer that Annie as Courtnie, for Court Annie) and that they want to know if she (Fannie?) is really real. However the plan that unfolds seems to have nothing whatsoever with determining the realness of either Courtnie or Fannie. Fannie non-verbally convinces William and Janet that she knows their secret which prompts them to endorse her real-ness but the important part here is what was, at least at some stage, probably the goal (or a goal).
The very next page Paz does something very unusual for Paz. When she gets (or engineers) a moment alone with Fannie she grabs her by the arm and informs her that Kat tries very hard for her and that whatever she (Fannie) is she will not do anything to make her (Kat) upset. In the context of Paz's facial expressions and the forceful arm-gripping it appears that there is an implicit threat that should Fannie make Kat upset, some sort of bad thing might happen. In order to understand what this means it needs to be placed into the proper context. Though we did not know it until the message-seed-thinger arrived, some time has passed since the last chapter. Courtnie was last seen leaving for Kat's house in a huff and it is not clear if she came back at all in the interm. It reasonably follows that Courtnie spent at least some time talking to Kat about Fannie about the situation in general and the incident with the favorite jumper in particular. What is less clear is what she talks about later.
Kat and Antimony have been friends for a long time. They've had issues before, most notably Ch. 32. Antimony's adventures (or problems) have periodically caused Kat some distress but I think it is reasonable to believe that this time around something happened which caused Kat to react abnormally, which caused Paz to act abnormally. Though she is clearly picking up on the tension between the Antimonies, Kat seems to be dealing with the Antimony surplus very well when she was last in the comic. I think it follows that something happened between chapters and the most likely cause would have to be something Courtnie said or did that was atypical for Antimony Carver, though perhaps understandable given the situation. Further, I think it's rational to assume that someone (probably Courtnie but outside chance of Janet) sought Kat's help in somehow disproving Fannie's "real-ness" and lost patience with the fruitless discussion of philosophy and situational ethics and suggested doing something that Kat would balk at, apparently something involving abduction and confinement as a starting point.
At what point the rest of the gang became involved in the plan is unclear. Paz cohabits with Kat so she was likely in early, perhaps even present for the initial conversation between Kat and Courtnie. Why the others are present at all when they had little role if any in the final version of the plan is also unclear but has disturbing implications. As friends they could be lures of some sort, or they could be muscle; William is bigger than Fannie and Janet is good with a bow. Maybe Courtnie was just rounding up mutual friends to get them all on her side for moral support or for some sort of collective shunning or condemning of Fannie, or maybe they just got wrapped up in the situation coincidentally as concerned bystanders who live in the same general area. Given the overall nature of the comic and the fact that Margo has been included I choose to believe it's one or both of the latter options but given the starting point and what Antimony is capable of I can't discard the other possibilities entirely.
During that or a subsequent discussion we do know that the issue of Fannie burning someone during the "fake kidnapping" was raised and the initial plan was modified on those and possibly other grounds. Fannie was peacefully taken by the gang to a "secondary location," an isolated farmhouse. There George maneuvers behind the twins and teleports the three of them to the air raid shelter. This was not part of the revised plan as far as Courtnie knew, as she complains to George about Kat not telling her about "this." What "this" may be isn't clear but Courtnie probably means her accompanying George and Fannie to the shelter and the "you have one hour to work out your problems" bit. Courtnie proceeds to explore the shelter quickly; maybe she has knows something about it or maybe she is just eager to do something other than stand around with Fannie.
Why the bunker? Why the isolated farmhouse? There is a Court-wide state of emergency. That impacted the site selection, as April 8th's comic indicated via George's dialogue. It's reasonable to assume that Kat and/or George 1. selected a location far enough away from any red or yellow zones that she believed that there was no chance of the Antimonies and Cvet encountering hostile creatures and 2. was capable of at least temporarily restraining an Antimony. Kat hopefully checked (or had George and/or Cvet check) the air raid shelter and (probably) the flood tunnels to make sure there was no sign of creature activity or any other source of danger beforehand. Additional considerations probably included the farmhouse as a convenient and unoccupied support site, but the isolation may have been a factor also. Even if she and George just went by records and maps and didn't check any of the places seen in the comic prior to their use, I figure Cvet at least would have wanted to go to the tunnels and shelter and make sure she could fit through the doors she needed to, and by doing so get a feel for the environment which would have amounted to a safety check in any case.
And that brings me to one of my main beefs about the plan's final form. As the whole Court is a conflict zone now that means there are actively hostile and intelligent creatures easily within a couple days walking distance for a human. The only guarantee that there wouldn't be a hostile encounter is what the creatures from the Wood have done in the past and whatever the Court has going for surveillance, which would hopefully be good for at least some warning but is probably limited since the robots are still mostly out of commission and would be mostly on the surface in any case. People (and creatures) do things for reasons but there's a difference between what an adversary has consistently done and what said adversary is capable of doing; an enemy's situation can change in ways that aren't apparent which can prompt a change in strategy or tactics without warning. That said, there's often a need to carry out training in places where there may be hostile people wandering around so I won't fault Kat or George for the place they selected. What I will take issue with is the apparent fact that nobody was monitoring what was happening and that Cvet either didn't or couldn't report back when the unexpected happened. I assume they thought Cvet would be responsible for the Antimonies' safety in the unlikely event that anyone/anything from the Wood was encountered. That's reasonable in the sense that Cvet is an associate Court protector, but Cvet should have reported in as soon as she had the opportunity to do so after she knew that there was ashray activity in the area and for some reason didn't or couldn't, which is a problem. Even if the ashray presented no threat whatsoever the sudden intrusion of the root into the complex is a move by "Loup" who is the enemy commander and that is major news. I'm guessing she didn't have a means to do so and that's the fault of whoever did the planning. Yes, George can teleport, but that's not a substitute for two-way communication.
What about the danger that the Antimony twins presented to Cvet and each other? We are not in a great position to judge that but I agree that we have to assume that since the plan went forward that the danger on this count was, in George's and Kat's mind, minimal or negligible. Cvet has had some training for sure, and maybe she's had a lot since we have no idea how old she is or how long she's been training (maybe hundreds of years). Cvet is almost certainly stealthy and can maybe run along ceilings and walls. She should also have the advantages of knowing what's going on in the plan and whatever preparation that she did (visiting the place or at least looking at a map, I assume). Maybe Cvet can turn invisible, maybe her hide is completely impervious to heat or even Courtnie's concentrated heat laser (which her remark about catching flame would suggest is not the case) and maybe she can manipulate objects or make sounds remotely. I've written about this already in a previous post so I won't repeat myself here but I will add that it's true that the Antimonies have a history of forgetting that they can look at stuff through the ether so maybe Cvet could have spooked them from a distance... for a short while, until one remembered that they can astral-travel or wondered if there might be a ghost or something etheric somewhere nearby and started scanning the entire area. But unless Cvet can stop time or effortlessly and instantly mind-control human-elemental hybrids, which I consider to be improbable, the problem is the lack of training that one or both of the twins have. Even if they're fully immune to each other's fire when actively trying to burn each other in a fight (which I'm not sure is the case) they could damage the environment in such a way as to harm each other or Cvet unless Cvet was shadowing them close enough to prevent it and because of the root-message I'm reasonably certain that couldn't be the case. So, the most sensible plan that I can think of would be to make the twins not want to fire on Cvet in the first place and not be under too much stress; more on this later.
Regarding the message from "Loup," if they weren't alone then would the message have happened? I don't think it's likely that the root-message could have been tricked by some ability that Cvet has since "Loup" is more powerful overall and familiar with most creatures that the Court might be using and because Cvet wasn't expecting it. Assuming the root-message wasn't fooled, then Cvet couldn't have been shadowing them closely at the time the message arrived. Where was she? I think there's three possibilities. 1. Cvet wasn't in the shelter level at all when the root-message happened but was waiting elsewhere and planning on entering later, either through a door or by teleporting with Parley. 2. Cvet was waiting elsewhere in the shelter level in a place of concealment or 3. Cvet was waiting in the flood tunnels for the twins to start exploring.
We do know (thanks to the next comic) that Cvet was shadowing the twins closely enough to overhear the conversation when they returned to the shelter level. If she had been waiting in the tunnels, which would have been a better place for her to maneuver and fly, then she may or may not have wound up on the opposite side of the twins from the ashray, and then either went up the hole or followed behind the ashray if she wanted to stay hidden. If Cvet was teleporting in then she might have missed the creation of the hole. The ashray was passing the twins on the steps so it is not possible to be completely sure but going up the hole would have caused Cvet to lose sight of the twins so I do not believe she would have chosen that. If Cvet was stationed farther back in the shelter, heard the noise of the ceiling collapsing, observed the ashray through the hole and decided there was no reason for immediate panic, and waited for the twins to come up the stairs, there would have been a good chance of the ashray detecting her. Either is possible but I think it is more likely that Cvet was down in the tunnels when the Carver twins teleported in, and then shadowed the girls and ashray up the stairs. She would have had more room to dodge and evade down there, but wouldn't it be better if the twins didn't want to attack her at all?
Instead of being an unseen menace or using some sort of trickery, why not just reveal herself? Courtnie looks as surprised by Cvet as Fannie. I think she didn't know about George getting a new partner. As either a curiosity or a potential ally in getting out of the tunnels, catching up to a shy or playful Rogat Orjack would require some effort, cornering one would probably require teamwork.
So there you have it, genteel forum-goers, the plan in three stages of development. Any thots?
Fannie kinda blackmailed Jan and Will as a shortcut to convincing them that she had Antimony's memories when pretty much any old recollection and five minutes would do. 
