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Post by Rex on Jun 2, 2010 10:43:55 GMT
Wow, this page is pretty awesome. We have what appears to be the first instance where Annie is without her scar in an etheric world (and I believe this was intentional), and very bizarre switcheroo and lines from Gamma that imply more strange things about Zimmy.
My guess is that Annie did indeed enter Zimmingham, but is somehow perceiving that world through Zimmy's eyes. Hence the lack of scar and telepathy with Gamma. Some good tests of this would be if they pass something reflective so we can see who is actually there, or if they confront Jack. If he and Gamma both see Zimmy, things just got a whole lot weirder for Annie.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Jun 2, 2010 10:46:12 GMT
I think it is not Zimmy or Gamma we see, but it's Jack projecting them. Or it's Annie expecting to see them here, so she sees them. What has me thinking are two things: 1. Neither Gamma or Annie goes * gop* when they touch each other's hands in the last two panels. Conclusion: Both of them are real persons (which, however, might of course appear as someone else than they actually are). Kat did not go "gop" when Annie touched her, so it's not sure that Gamma is a real person here. Agreed but for different reasons. It's possible for the stronger Nobodies to not gop when touched. There was no blip like before, but a transition more like this. Antimony had the cut when she was in Zim City before but it doesn't appear now. I think we indeed are inside some sort of delusion of Jack's. Soon we will see some medium-ing and hopefully Jack getting cured like I've speculated elsewhere.
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Post by eightyfour on Jun 2, 2010 11:51:56 GMT
What has me thinking are two things: 1. Neither Gamma or Annie goes * gop* when they touch each other's hands in the last two panels. Conclusion: Both of them are real persons (which, however, might of course appear as someone else than they actually are). Kat did not go "gop" when Annie touched her, so it's not sure that Gamma is a real person here. I was sure Annie and Kat didn't actually touch back then. I stand corrected. But anyway, this is Zimmingham we're talking about. I think we may be assuming rules to this place that might not actually apply.
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Post by alexscott on Jun 2, 2010 12:17:08 GMT
I'm becoming more and more convinced that this isn't Zimmingham, but Birmingjack. It doesn't seem to be centered on Zimmy the way other hallucinations have been; Annie finds her in the white space, which appears to be on the outer edge. Then there's the way she follows Zimmy around a corner and immediately spots Gamma, as if she'd been there all along. Things just aren't right.
Er, at least, less right than they would be.
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troll
Junior Member
Posts: 53
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Post by troll on Jun 2, 2010 12:21:05 GMT
Another weird thing is that Gamma understands what is being spoken.
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Post by TBeholder on Jun 2, 2010 12:35:37 GMT
So, I am guessing that was the real Zimmy, and she ran away because she was scared? Still angry after their last encounter? Maybe she mistook Annie for one of these things. Several episodes of utterly incomprehensible mind screw are inevitable. Like back in "A Ghost Story". Until there is one sentence that explains everything, and it all collapses into a single moment of clarity and we curse ourselves for not noticing the obvious meaning. I love this webcomic. Yeah. ;D It looks like Gamma's communicating with Annie telepathically, which we haven't seen her do before. She just never tried? Let alone in Zimmyburg. Which either means that Annie is somehow able to "hear" her, or she isn't hearing anything at all. Why not? After her meditations on a god's true form... and anyway they both are sort of in Zimmy's mind. Why does Gamma think Annie is Zimmy? Maybe, she expects this more than to see Annie out of the blue sky? And without her cut. After all, half of the forumites did assume it's not the true Annie. ;D How come Gamma can use her telepathy with Annie? Because she mistook her for Zimmy? Maybe she always could and just never did before, but if so, why? Because after a few futile attempts she doesn't expect it to work with anyone but Zimmy? My guess is, Annie isn't really Annie. She's missing her scar. No, something's not right there... Gamma doesn't *gob* her... Maybe some dog licked it and it closed? Say, how does Gamma even know what Annie said? I thought she didn't speak English.... There's no evidence Gamma understands her so far. Gamma just knows Zimmy thinking she's Annie would look like Annie in ZimCity. Anyway, Annie should say something to her in Polish. I wanted to write the same, but maybe they understand each other just because they are there. That is, maybe however they communicate, it's effectively just props for a telepathy (via Zimmy).
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Post by todd on Jun 2, 2010 12:48:07 GMT
My bet is on the white room indicating that everything in and past chapter 23 has been one big simulation, as training by Jones. I hope not. That would mean that all the revelations we received in Chapters 25 and 26 - about Jeanne's death and Diego's part in it, Reynardine's old body in Gillitie Wood, etc. - weren't real - and then Tom would have to come up with another answer to those questions that worked just as well, if not better.
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Post by djublonskopf on Jun 2, 2010 13:25:18 GMT
For all the love of speculation, the best pages are the most confusing. This is off-topic (but on-topic for a few days ago): The link somebody posted about Annie's hand reminded me of this page. For as dangerous as Gunnerkrigg seems, Annie's mom is the one who sent her there. The same mom who promised she would never send Annie into danger. So I wonder: did Surma know something (relevant to the "danger") that we don't?
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Post by legion on Jun 2, 2010 13:28:40 GMT
Whaaaaaaa…
[insert 1865494697464 different theories about what is going on here]
I'm gonna go with "Annie is having a premonition, Vision of Escaflowne-style".
Ninja-edit: also, yaaaaay Zimmy and Gamma, hadn't seen them since chapter 19!
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Post by sebastian on Jun 2, 2010 14:23:27 GMT
Perhaps Annie is able to hear Gamma because they both have etheric power. My guess is it's either that, or Zimmy's hallucination is causing it, and Zimmy's condition is much stronger than we thought. My bet is on the white room indicating that everything in and past chapter 23 has been one big simulation, as training by Jones. I could totally see Jones do something like that. Put Annie into a simulated situation (without telling her before, of course) to see how she'd react.
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Post by legion on Jun 2, 2010 14:33:54 GMT
Yeah, I can see that: it turns out Annie was in the holo-simulation room all allong.
But THEN it turns out it was all a hallucination Zimmy was having.
But THEN it turns out it was all a dream Annie was having.
But THEN it turns out it was all a fanfiction writen by Reynardine.
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Post by Rasselas on Jun 2, 2010 15:15:10 GMT
That being said, there are a lot of possibilities and even more room for wild conjecture. On the one hand, I really don't want this to be one of those "... and it was all a dream!" things and they're all still back on the roof like they were the first time Jack entered Zimmyham, because that would mean that the camping trip, etc. was all part of some elaborate dream concocted by Zimmy. Something tells me that we wouldn't have had laser cows if Annie and the others were all in her head. Laser spiders, perhaps. Oh, you might not have meant my post, but when I said "they're all still on the roof" I meant that in this separate incident, they're still on the roof. I didn't mean to say that everything is still a part of the previous roof/Zimmy incident. Edit: Oh, I think you guys proposing this is Birminghjack might be right! You know why? Jack wanted to see Zimmy (and Gamma).. so there she is! Annie wanted to see Kat really bad when she was stuck withg Zimmy for the first time.. and there, Kat appeared. I think Birminghell might work in this way, that you attract things depending on your mental state? Perhaps. Dunno, might be way off with this. Hmm, but why is it that Zimmy sees nobodies? My theory has holes in it the size of marvellous leaking coconuts.
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Post by Casey on Jun 2, 2010 15:25:23 GMT
This page is so awesome because it could be so many different things. But here is my theory on what is happening. This is a Jack-created ether-trap. Jack went up on the roof, anticipating that Zimmy would be coming because he turned on the ether station, and recreated a Zimmingham-looking scene from his own memory of being there. Then he created a fake Gamma (or alternatively, it's actually him disguised as Gamma) in order to lure the real Zimmy into dropping her guard. Notice how Gamma is wearing the same thing that she was in the toy shop from Power Station. Notice also that Gamma was seen to be wearing other clothes in Zimmingham in Dobranoc Gamma. Notice how Annie speaks English out loud, yet "Gamma" seems to understand her. Jack might get that detail wrong. If this theory is correct, then Jack, for his part, seems to think that Annie really is Zimmy. Either something about the projection is making him unable to tell who it is (in much the same way that Zimmy can't see regular people's faces at times) or alternatively, Jack is so fixated on getting to Zimmy that his mind can't allow for the possibility of anyone else coming up on that roof, and decides that it must be Zimmy even though it looks like Annie. In a lot of ways, I think, this seems to have parallels to the situation in A Ghost Story. The above is my best stab at figuring out what's going on. On another note, I wanted to give my own props to Charlotte, who as far as I know is the first person ever to notice and point out that Annie's hand changes Zimmy's shirt from blue to white in the first frame of page 194. Maybe that was discussed back then, but it's never come up in the "Things I Noticed On Re-Read" thread. And I don't think I ever noticed it... or realized its significance, except when seen in the context of the later chapter "A Ghost Story" where Annie's touch/proximity changes Martin's arm back from ether-projection to reality. (Zimmy was wearing a white shirt in reality as seen in the second frame, and where Annie touched her, the ether-projection vanished.) Anyway, mind-blowing page, lots of possibility, Tom throws us another zinger just when we think we know something, and what else really can you say about it? Everything else is just guesses. Very interested to see how this plays out!
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Post by wanderer on Jun 2, 2010 15:27:15 GMT
MINDSCREW!!
Beyond that there are so many possibilities and theories that there's no way to know for sure what's going on. I'm going to grab one and guess that the Annie we see in the last few panels isn't actually Annie any more, but rather Zimmy in the shape of Annie with all of Annie's memories up to the point of going on to the roof (at least). Thus, Zimmy thinks she's Annie.
Yeah that's only one possibility out of many, but things took such a turn for the utterly bizarre that there's no way to really know yet what's going on. So I picked one potentially interesting theory and chose to stick with it.
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lovecraft1024
Full Member
What does anything mean? Basically
Posts: 118
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Post by lovecraft1024 on Jun 2, 2010 15:37:46 GMT
Very creepy. And Gamma has the dark stuff around her eyes, too. I saw some in #468, too, but not this bad. She creeps me out in this one...
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Post by violet on Jun 2, 2010 15:48:10 GMT
It's only as real as you let it be. Someone failed her seeing-through-glamour roll.
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Post by basser on Jun 2, 2010 15:53:18 GMT
Notice how Gamma is wearing the same thing that she was in the toy shop from Power Station. Notice also that Gamma was seen to be wearing other clothes in Zimmingham in Dobranoc Gamma. Nit-picking, but we never see Zimmingham in Dobranoc Gamma. What we see here is Zimmy's memories of coming to the school, not her hellish dreamworld. If you look up in the top-left corner, it says 9000 hours or something. This is clearly an event happening in the past. Zimmy even says two pages later that all this already happened. We have never seen Gamma wearing anything besides the candyfloss shirt when in Zimmingham. Mostly because we've only seen Zimmingham once so far. Also my vote is for this Annie to actually be Zimmy, who has indeed forgotten who she is. T'would be a masterful transition in character focus. Suddenly in a page or two we see Annie (plus etheric cut) come through the door onto the roof, and whoooooah total mindfuckery commences.
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Post by alexscott on Jun 2, 2010 16:11:34 GMT
Gamma's always had shadows around her eyes--even in City Face. It's from sleep deprivation, to keep Zimmy from having her attacks.
On Birmingjack - Assuming that is what it is, I agree that Jack created it to attract Zimmy, but I'm not sure he'd do it on purpose--he barely has any self-control as it is.
I'm not sure the clothes mean much. Gamma was wearing the same thing in Zimmingham before, yes, but so was Zimmy, and they were both in their uniforms before the Station made everything go BIP. And I think the only reason her clothes were different in "Dobranoc, Gamma" was because she'd fallen asleep, so the hallucination didn't affect her anymore. Maybe those outfits are a way for them both to keep a grip on reality.
But yeah, if that is really Gamma, I have a feeling she might be just as lost as Annie is. Maybe she understands her because Annie's just had so much practice as a medium and with her blinker stone since she last saw Gamma, they really can communicate telepathically. That could be why Gamma thinks she's Zimmy.
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Post by Casey on Jun 2, 2010 16:26:33 GMT
Nit-picking, but we never see Zimmingham in Dobranoc Gamma. What we see here is Zimmy's memories of coming to the school, not her hellish dreamworld. This isn't Zimmingham?This isn't Zimmingham?This isn't Zimmingham?This, I agree, is not Zimmingham.Sure it's a flashback... that doesn't mean that when it actually happened in the past, she wasn't in Zimmingham at the time though. Clearly the time in Power Station wasn't the only time that Zimmy's been in Zimmingham, so you stating that it was in the past seems irrelevant.
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Post by Casey on Jun 2, 2010 16:47:13 GMT
I'm not sure the clothes mean much. Gamma was wearing the same thing in Zimmingham before, yes, but so was Zimmy, and they were both in their uniforms before the Station made everything go BIP. And I think the only reason her clothes were different in "Dobranoc, Gamma" was because she'd fallen asleep, so the hallucination didn't affect her anymore. Maybe those outfits are a way for them both to keep a grip on reality. I should have been more specific about the point I was making about Gamma's clothes. She's wearing here what Jack would have seen her wearing when he saw her in Zimmingham during Power Station. I was pointing out that Gamma had been seen wearing other clothes before, to head off arguments that Gamma is always wearing that top while in Zimmingham, because clearly she's not. Therefore, in my theory, the fact that she is wearing the same top seems to lend credence to the idea that this is a reflection, even a simulation or recreation, of the specific circumstances of the events in Power Station as remembered (and recreated) by Jack.
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Post by Refugee on Jun 2, 2010 16:48:36 GMT
Zimmy routinely tolerates that condescending pat on the hand and tone of voice?
If that's so, it's says something about how those two get along. Zimmy's more broken than I knew.
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Post by Casey on Jun 2, 2010 16:51:44 GMT
Zimmy routinely tolerates that condescending pat on the hand and tone of voice? If that's so, it's says something about how those two get along. Zimmy's more broken than I knew. Perhaps more evidence that it's not really Gamma?
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Post by Aris Katsaris on Jun 2, 2010 18:21:38 GMT
Gamma has consistently acted in a big-sisterly way that can be perceived as *slightly* condescending. She calls Zimmy "stupid" in her very first appearance, and she kisses Zimmy on the forehead in Dobranoc, Gamma.
I think her tone fits perfectly with Gamma's previous appearances.
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Post by spacemilk on Jun 2, 2010 18:47:58 GMT
Gamma has consistently acted in a big-sisterly way that can be perceived as *slightly* condescending. She calls Zimmy "stupid" in her very first appearance, and she kisses Zimmy on the forehead in Dobranoc, Gamma. I think her tone fits perfectly with Gamma's previous appearances. Kissing Zimmy on the forehead is not at all condescending, in my opinion. And I don't think Gamma is calling Zimmy stupid in her first appearance. We don't see who she is talking to; we just see her say "Glupie..." (Stupid...) Considering how Gamma has no idea what Zimmy is saying to them (remember how Zimmy does her (incorrect) translations?) there's absolutely no reason Gamma would call Zimmy stupid. Rather, Zimmy is likely feeding her wrong information telepathically and telling her bad stuff about Kat and Annie. Gamma looks sorta to her right to say that. But based on the setup of how they are standing, she could conceivably be talking to Zimmy, Annie, or Kat, or Annie and Kat as a group. So it's actually much more reasonable to assume she's not at all talking to Zimmy when she says that. Plus Annie says "That's not very nice" in Polish, and I think she'd be much more likely to say that if Gamma is calling Kat stupid (rather than Zimmy). Nor do I think Gamma would act embarrassed like that, if she were talking to Zimmy. I don't think Gamma has a history of acting condescending, at all. However I also don't think her behavior is that condescending in this new post; I see her manner as more along the line of a nurse's bedside manner with an invalid. I cannot think of an explanation for this that doesn't have massive holes in it. So frustrating, but it's going to be so rewarding when we find out more! I guess this teasing is how Tom pays us back for two relatively expositional previous posts.
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Post by Rasselas on Jun 2, 2010 18:48:12 GMT
No, no, she called Annie and/or Kat stupid, is how I saw that. But, she wasn't expecting Annie to actually understand it in Polish, thus her embarrassment.
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Post by lurker on Jun 2, 2010 18:55:55 GMT
There's no need to jump to wild conclusions here. This page, taken in the context of what has happened prior to this, is really quite simple. The activation of the power station has drawn Zimmy out of hiding, as Jack had predicted. However, it has also triggered a massive mental breakdown in her, which, coupled with her unique etheric condition, has not only caused Zimmingham to project itself into the real world on that rooftop, but also warped reality enough that now Gamma thinks Annie is Zimmy. The sequence of panels on this page is simply showing how Annie stepped over the boundary of the real world into Zimmingham-world.
I'm anticipating that we shall soon find Jack sucked into Zimmingham too. Much hilarity to ensue. Can't wait to find out what happens next!
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Post by nikita on Jun 2, 2010 19:05:45 GMT
First: This page is awesome!
I can't find any consistent theory on what's happening here.
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Post by nikita on Jun 2, 2010 19:06:28 GMT
First: This page is awesome! I can't find any consistent theory on what's happening here or who or what "Zimmy"/"Gamma" really is.
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mariposa
Full Member
Hi, I'm Elise!
Posts: 149
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Post by mariposa on Jun 2, 2010 19:16:17 GMT
Why is everyone trying to figure what's going on? The scary thing about Zimmy's hallucinations is that they don't make sense.
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Post by djublonskopf on Jun 2, 2010 19:44:20 GMT
Gamma's thought bubbles are light purple-blue, just like her and Zimmy's regular speech bubbles always are, and Annie's speech bubbles remain light pink in every panel, just like they always are.
I think it really is Annie and I think it really is Gamma.
(Side-note . . . why do Gamma and Zimmy have exactly the same color speech bubbles, when every other major character has their own color?)
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