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Post by foxurus on Oct 18, 2023 7:53:51 GMT
This is so exciting!
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Post by foxurus on Sept 27, 2023 17:01:13 GMT
They had more of a point in the case of Mortal Kombat, which is a straight up empowerment through violence experience. Game spoilers: In BG3, that and a lot of other, worse actions are committed by your character under certain circumstances and especially certain influences, and none of it is really portrayed as a good thing. D&D has always had the ability to role-play people committing hideously evil acts (or just classic murder hobo adventurer behaviour) and that's fine but if you decided to be graphically violent and cruel to small non dangerous animals in my game it would be a red flag that you're a psycho and probably not invited any more. I don't think "but it's portrayed as evil" is an excuse tbh - it's more than a bit unnecessary. I don't have much gaming time these days so I hadn't picked it up yet but I had been interested up until now. Now there's no chance. In actual D&D, at a table, that scene would've played out as: Dark: Hey DM, I'd like my backstory to be that I can't remember my past and I have someone else's voice in my head trying to get me to do bad things. Does that sound alright? DM: Sure!
Later... DM: Dark, you see an adorable squirrel. Dark: Oh! That's so cute. I think I can cast Speak With Animals, actually, so I'm gonna-- DM: As you're thinking that, you find your body moving without your permission and watch yourself punt the squirrel into oblivion. It's certainly dead now. Dark: ...oh.
...because it's not just that it's protrayed as evil, it's protrayed as out of your control.
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Post by foxurus on Sept 26, 2023 17:19:22 GMT
It doesn't necessarily have to be something related to Annie or Coyote for her to get it immediately. Annie is just good at riddles, if I remember correctly.
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Post by foxurus on Jul 26, 2023 16:39:14 GMT
Thia is really sad... this is the most evil thing Coyote has done. Coyote psychologically abused Ysengrin for hundreds of years, controlling all aspects of his life and gaslighting him by literally taking away his memories, with the purpose of disintegrating his mental health so much that he'd murder someone he loved.
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Post by foxurus on May 19, 2023 7:47:18 GMT
I wonder if knowing robots can lie will change his opinion of Lana at all?
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Post by foxurus on Apr 28, 2023 7:20:28 GMT
Awww Annie she looks so uncomfortable-concerned-afraid(??). Poor babies.
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Post by foxurus on Apr 7, 2023 19:36:13 GMT
Eeeeyup. Genuine super villain vibes right there! "Pursuing the greater good", "caring yet ready to sacrifice you for the sake of the grand scheme" type. I disagree with that actually. Kat who cried when she found out about the purpose of Paz's mice and freed Jane, "ready to sacrifice you for the sake of the grand scheme"? Kat, the one person who was most upset that the robots were used as a shield, and the one who bothered to rescue them after Loup retaliated? Nah. She'd be the last person to sacrifice people for "the greater good". Sometimes she fails to foresee the consequences of what she's doing, and there's definitely danger in that. But I can't see her going ahead with a plan if she actually knows it will hurt someone. She's a clueless kid but never a villain. If she's turning into the robots' god through their beliefs, their beliefs may shape who she is. And the robots believe she's the type who sacrifices people. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1294 (lazy link because I don't want to use HTML on mobile) Tom ended up changing the art on this page.
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Post by foxurus on Mar 15, 2023 18:50:48 GMT
Has Paz never talked to anyone about MechaKat?? That was like two years ago!
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Post by foxurus on Feb 24, 2023 20:15:40 GMT
I can't remember, was the appearance of the eldest Norn a representation of what Kat expected to look like when she was older, or what she would actually look like?
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Post by foxurus on Feb 20, 2023 11:26:50 GMT
We can't see her face, maybe she's still grinning. Next page she'll say, "All done! That went just as expected!"
(I don't think that will happen.)
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Post by foxurus on Oct 10, 2022 18:14:13 GMT
I interpreted the page as Lana's love for him causing him to explode, not his love for Lana. Maybe that's the aromantic in me, or more likely, the cynic. A lot of people get addicted to the high of someone caring about them without reciprocating it at all. Loup seems the sort.
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Post by foxurus on Aug 6, 2022 17:14:17 GMT
Reading the top panels I thought the speaker WAS the ocean, and that it was Omega. Neither of those has been disproven so far. I figure if the speaker was the ocean they would say "This ocean is YOUR method of traveling the stars" or "MY ocean is [...]" or something more like that. The court's bad about thinking things through. They split from the forest because they wanted to get away from etheric stuff, then use etheric stuff to bind Jeanne and her lover into the Annan gorge to "protect the court." Also the seed bismuth must be etheric powered, because the court isn't built, it grows. Well, for one, just because something is impossible in the real world doesn't mean it's powered by ether in the world of GKC. There seems to be other forms of fantasy powering the things in GKC as well; Kat's anti-gravity machine, her ability to materialize stuff, and the robots' new bodies are apparently all completely legitimate in the Court's eyes. But I was under the impression the hatred and rejection of the ether was new, and the formation of the Court was to get away from etheric beings -- mostly Coyote. In fact, I think it's quite possible that that's still the goal. Shell's biased against the ether and Aata has moral qualms with the ether, but perhaps the Court and the Shadow Men are less concerned with getting away from it than Shell's been led to believe. After all, the Headmaster is now in charge of the Shadow Men and he seems to have been falsely promised by someone else that his daughter would be here. Aata being "in charge" of the Shadow Men doesn't mean he knew everything. They could have easily fed him lies to keep him happy. And why would they want to be rid of the ether entirely? Even with all the ether present in the world, the Omega Device had been working to the point where it pinpointed when and where two random slugs would mate even with Surma playing with the ether in that location the whole time they were. Evidentially it can account for the ether when making its predictions. But as Loup shows -- and I'm sure as Coyote had shown -- very powerful being who bend the ether to their whims are a different matter. The Device can't always predict them. To put it another way...they can change the future. That's quite a powerful skill. Annie and Loup made a good point a few chapters back. What's the use of a prediction machine without being able to change the outcome? Why would the Court go to such lengths for that? I think they wouldn't. That's the function of the Omega Device, but it's not the point. The Omega Device is quite powerful; what if it's even powerful enough to simulate the future outcomes of a world with a slightly different atomic makeup? Now you know not only the outcome of everything, and all the events that will lead to it, but also what would cause other outcomes instead. And you have access to Zimmy, a being with the raw power to warp reality but no ability to control it. If you can find some way to control her and her reality-warping with enough precision that you can change things at the atomic level... Well. Now you can force events to go the way you want, can't you? The Court would be able to to design and orchestrate their preferred future. They would control everything. As long as no other reality-warping creatures are sticking their paws in things, at least. Which is why they need to go far, far away for the Omega Device to work properly. (It just came to mind that they probably found Zimmy by tracking events that didn't go as the Omega Device predicted.) I wonder how the story will proceed after this departure. From the evidence, everyone closely involved in the Court's big projects and goals will be taking part in the move. Once they're gone, we'll have just a "former Court" inhabited by the people who stayed behind (as Kat will apparently be doing) or were left behind (like Annie and Reynardine). The Court's schemes will continue on this other planet, but it'll be essentially offstage; Annie, Kat, and the rest will no longer be involved. (The mysterious speaker may reveal what the Court's goal was - that would fit the chapter title - but once the boat sails away with the Court leadership on board, further interaction between it and the leads will be all but impossible.) Hmm, fair point. I wonder if the Court's plan will fail and they'll be forced to return soon.
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Post by foxurus on Aug 5, 2022 16:57:51 GMT
Reading the top panels I thought the speaker WAS the ocean, and that it was Omega. I'd definitely be alarmed if the whole ocean talked to me!
But also I don't have a good grasp of who/what Omega is, soooo.
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Post by foxurus on Jul 27, 2022 14:12:21 GMT
Maybe this is showing us Renard's ethereal body was burned away, and now he will look like a toy wolf in the ether as well.
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Post by foxurus on Jul 24, 2022 17:07:00 GMT
It's the identical poses that are making me the most nervous. There aren't very many people at this meeting are there? Edit: Counting 21 silhouettes. Both shots we get are very tightly cropped, I don't think we can say how many people there are.
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Post by foxurus on Jul 20, 2022 16:17:23 GMT
We don't know if Loup is bound by his promises like Coyote was, do we? If he is, the NPs could capture him right there and then and there wouldn't be anything he could do about it. On the other hand, Annie describes him as having no limits and given what we've seen of his whimsical behaviour so far, he probably could go back on his word if he really felt like it. "Coyote is no liar" and "If Coyote promised no harm would come to you, you can be certain he will make sure of it" are quotes from Jones in The Medium Beginning. At the moment I can't find other times he's said to not lie, though I think there are some. I don't think anyone's ever said he couldn't lie though. I bet it was just another one of his self-imposed rules that made things more interesting for him. So no, I doubt Loup is forbidden from lying. To everyone saying Robot had to keep a narrow scope or else Loup would refuse the deal, the point is Robot never needed to make this deal at all. He could've gone to Kat or Annie and told them where Loup is.
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Post by foxurus on Jul 20, 2022 16:05:19 GMT
When did Robot stop caring about Annie? I imagine we've been shown this lack of concern before, but I don't remember. Who says he doesn't care about her? I mean I know he didn't specify her to Loup, but I'm guessing he either thought that was too much too ask for and is prioritizing, or (less likely) he just considers Annie to be part of Kat's gang and as such it's implied Loup should leave her alone as well. Loup is obsessed with Annie and everyone knows it. It's like half the reason he's doing all this stuff. Robot isn't dumb, he would know that he'd have to specifically mention Annie if he wanted her included in this. More than that, though, Loup wouldn't agree if Annie was involved in the deal. If Robot cared about Annie then he would tell Annie about Loup instead of doing whatever this is. "Prioritizing" in this situation amounts to throwing Annie under the bus.
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Post by foxurus on Jul 18, 2022 7:58:32 GMT
I hate* how much Robbie in panel 1 reminds me of Diego. The lines reminiscent of the wire arms of glasses, the absolutely expressionless circles at the eyes. And of course, the not giving a damn as long as his interests are preserved. Robbie's also neatly placed himself above everyone, including the "Angel," by throwing under the bus her best friend and all of the other causes she holds dear for the sake of the one that he prioritizes. There's a remote arrogance that feels very Diego-like, making decisions in the shadows and then stubbornly doing the confused Pikachu face at the end like a martyr when people are disgusted with him. *: in-fiction, obviouslyOh wow. I didn't catch how much he looks like Diego in the first panel but you are absolutely correct. Chilling. When did Robot stop caring about Annie? I imagine we've been shown this lack of concern before, but I don't remember.
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Post by foxurus on Jun 25, 2022 8:01:14 GMT
...Seek a mate from the Court? Get imprisoned in it. Take and ruin bodies? Have your own taken away and ruined. Try to kill, out of fear and frustration, the daughter and holder of the essence of your lost love? Become her possession... And yet, he doesn't really learn the lesson! This scene is one of my favorites, because of how much it tell us about Renard. He's just visited Daniel's tomb, with such profound grief. He's just said how much he regrets trying to kill Annie. And then, he immediately goes for the kill. He could've gone to the Court with the case, asked help from Eggs to contain her, tried to convince her to stop being a psycho. But no, the first thing he does is be judge, jury and executioner, attack without a second thought that which he considers a threat... much like a wild animal would do. Because that's what he is. No matter how much he tries to associate with humans and be like them, by the end of the day he's still a wild animal.I... might've gotten a bit sidetracked here. Still, a point is made!It's not a unique trait to wild animals. Humans are the ones who have executions and big wars and mafias. I'd argue it's more human behavior than wild, to kill someone because you disagree with them. Renard regrets killing and trying to kill innocent people who had done nothing to him. He explicitly doesn't regret it because "killing is bad". In that same chapter, he said that killing Sivo was different; they were fighting, and he won. Hetty was not innocent. In fact, she was trying to kill someone who is. Renard wasn't any different from who he says he is in that scene, and no different from a human. Look at how the upstanding paragonic good guys solve their problems in the fiction we write: they kill the dragon.
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Post by foxurus on Oct 22, 2021 23:18:48 GMT
The question of what the heck will happen when Loup dies is a big one. I would expect at minimum that the parts making him up will be separated, by the blade that can cut a shadow from the ground. So we'll probably have Coyote and Ysengrin at that point... dead? As dead as Coyote is anyway. But will we have those two, or Loup as well? And will Annie really be able to take all or some of them into the ether? If so, what the heck will happen next? More than that ... if by the time he dies he's also gotten Reynard's possession power back (by circumstances unknown), what if he's in a human body he's taken over when this happens? (on an unrelated thought) As foxurus reminds me, even insects are taken by psychopomps, but do they (and various other creatures) affect the Ether the way humans do? If not, why only humans? What happened to allow humans to influence the Ether? ... What if we're seeing the story of how that came to be? Curiosity and creativity, I think. Which begs the question of the forest elves.
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Post by foxurus on Oct 18, 2021 17:34:21 GMT
And dead people go into the Ether when a psychopomp takes them there, and they shape the Ether with their beliefs. This raises a different question, though, which is: Isn't this only supposed to work for humans? Loup isn't a human. But then, does it work for, say, the tree elves, when they die and go into the Ether? Do we know that a psychopomp shows up for them when they die? But what if it's up to the psychopomp? What if, right now, only humans shape the world because psychopomps only take humans into the Ether, because humans created the psychopomps with their beliefs? What if there were a human psychopomp who could choose to do something different? And what if by doing so the world were changed so that other points of view shaped the Ether from then on? Bugs are taken by the psychopomps, too. I think it's safe to assume everything is taken by psychopomps.
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Post by foxurus on Aug 19, 2021 0:13:14 GMT
Is this the first time we've gotten a gender for Shell?
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Post by foxurus on Jul 17, 2021 17:44:41 GMT
Since it was all but confirmed Muut came to guide the shadow man who was killed while he possessed S13 into the Ether, that in turn means they also make the world spin. Insects are taken by psychompomps, but they don't seem to have the power to make gods. To me it seems the glass-eyed men were the bitter ones. They are the ones hating humans, because their creator forgot about them, being more interested in humans than his own creations. The glass-eyed men are obviously bitter, but that doesn't mean Coyote isn't for different reasons. Being an almighty god and still not being able to recreate humans even though he tried? Coyote isn't used to having his power kept in check by anyone but himself.
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Post by foxurus on Jul 16, 2021 21:12:22 GMT
Buddha's story being a man who achieved enlightenment and a teacher rather than specifically a god... Important distinction? Edit: This post on reddit might be on the right track and he might not be Buddha at all? Failed cousin, maybe not because Coyote considers him a cousin, but because he was the Buddha's cousin? Interesting. Aata makes an odd comment too, implying that Coyote is bitter. I could think of many words to describe Coyote, but bitter would never have been one of them. I always thought he might be bitter about not being able to create humans. Then Aata turns to Annie, who's drawn cartoonishly in the distance, and accuses her of concealing the fact that Coyote's still alive. Coyote then confirms that he isn't (I'd been wondering – apparently this is like the goose bone) and that this is just a fragment, though he uses the term "flash of memory." Coyote thinks Aata already knew this, which implies that Aata intended to shame Annie with his accusation, perhaps in an attempt to gain more control over her. By defusing this, Coyote has exposed Aata as a deceiver. Though I suspect that Annie already knew this. "But you already knew that" is sometimes used in a condescending way, to someone who definitely didn't know it, but "should" have. Coyote can't lie about the world, but he might be able to lie about what his own thoughts are. Maybe "I suspect X" doesn't need to be true. Whatever Aata is, he's very pretty.
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Post by foxurus on May 14, 2021 6:33:32 GMT
I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I lumped you and foxurus together as "people who would be less enthusiastic about Therapist Jones than I would," but that category probably includes most of humanity. Haha. I think if Jones tried to be a therapist she could be a good one (admittedly, for people who are not me), but I don't think she wants to.
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Post by foxurus on May 10, 2021 20:05:59 GMT
silicondream You attributed like three of my quotes to other people. :P Yeah, a therapist needs to be able to do more than ask questions and listen. If their patient needs advice or another perspective, the therapist (to be a good one) must be able to provide that. Not all problems can be solved with a sounding board. Jones would not humor the idea of roleplaying to help someone through their anxiety. A therapist would, because it's easy and they have an obligation to help their patient.
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Post by foxurus on May 8, 2021 4:04:44 GMT
Do we know for certain Annie died and wasn't just permanently injured (like losing her legs or something)? Could explain why Kat was still trying to save her when she was much older than she is now. Generally after about five years people are gonna accept that, while extremely painful and traumatic, their loved ones are dead and that's Just How It Is. I mean, she'd be bringing back a 12-year-old Annie, wouldn't she?
But I'm probably forgetting where the Norns confirmed that or something.
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Post by foxurus on May 7, 2021 23:21:56 GMT
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Post by foxurus on May 7, 2021 23:03:22 GMT
Annie is creeping me out in this page, iunno. Emote more, please. We talking about the same person? Annie has historically been terrible at the emoting, and on this page she isn't in standard neutral pose, has some body language, starts at slight smile, ends on slight downturn mouth. She knows people talk about her father behind her back, but now has new insight, having seen both annies perspectives of him. She's actually seen the him that is normally locked away, the man her mother loved. That doesn't mean she doesn't still want or need him to open up to her still. Which he is set to do, thanks to Jones. It also doesn't mean that she's in denial or on the brink of a breakdown until she gets it. She CAN be 'fine' right now, but still need him to say it. It just also isn't what all of her friends think. Are you talking about the next page? The one where she talks about her father, I agree, she's emoting. The previous page, though, she's maintaining a smile despite her words not matching it. I don't remember a previous time where Annie masked her feelings with a smile instead of a blank face.
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Post by foxurus on May 7, 2021 2:08:31 GMT
I expressed myself wrong in saying "why" Renard went ahead, I meant more like why it was necessary to show this to readers. I bet you ten quatloos that if we hadn't been shown, someone in this thread would be asking where Renard is. Speaking of, where did Kat go?
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