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Post by mturtle7 on Oct 6, 2023 20:18:36 GMT
While Annie's and Y's interaction remains to be seen, I REALLY LIKE that Coyote was punted like a ball, while Ysegrine is huge and majestic. It fits how they see themselves, I think, if not each other.
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Post by mturtle7 on Sept 29, 2023 20:27:17 GMT
Occasionally, if I'm to be honest, there have been times when I've found these moments to be a little too smug or insufferable for my tastes.
This is not one of those times. The feeling of sheer, unrestrained, joy I feel when looking at that panel of Annie PUNTing that little b*stard into orbit CANNOT be overstated. Well done, sir, well done.
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Post by mturtle7 on Aug 19, 2023 21:10:00 GMT
Putting it another way... Jones existence doesn't seem to be a natural occurrence. She was either intentionally put at the beginning of times, or "retconned" into existence by the humanity's power over ether via stories and myths.But in this comic there doesn't seem to be any kind of belief/ religion/ myth which would shape Jones into some kind of avatar of non-ether Earth or something. The case where we anticipate the apotheosis of a new myth/ god is Kat, because we're seeing the plot converging towards it. There's no indication of that around Jones.
Therefore she must have been sent to the past. Who could have the power to create a being like that and put it there? Who has the story shown, until now, to be able to design something that advanced AND to be able to meddle in time? Hrrrrrrgh...ok, look. Most of your theory, I like and respect. You drew some really cool thematic parallels there, and it's not completely implausible that Kat will turn out to have been Jones' creator all along (it's *a little* out there, but hey, we have this Wild Speculation thread for a reason).
But this kind of attitude towards Jones - which I've seen a lot of fans take, over the years - really frustrates me, because it dismisses a part of GC's magic system that I've always seen as obviously canon: In the GC-Verse, werid sh*t just happens sometimes.
Take Paz, for example. As everyone knows, Paz can talk to animals. But why? How? It's not like she comes from a long line of Galician animal shamans, or is secretly the Chosen One of the Wilds, or anything like that. Nobody else in her family seems to be able to do it; there's no particular mythological basis for it that we've seen; it just kinda is, and we all nod along and say "well sure, if magic is real, then that seems plausible."
Smitty, Zimmy, and Gamma are also examples of this, I think. Again, there's no particular mythological basis for their powers that we know of, they're just people who were born with super weird, magical abilities Because Reasons - that old ' etherial tenet' that the Court hates so much!
In the same way, I think there doesn't necessarily have to be a popular mythological link to Jones for her to have been created by the Ether. An immortal, indestructible woman with no feelings who's been around since the creation of the Earth, and has chosen to observe human history from the sidelines; why does that need any more explanation than a boy who was suddenly born with the power to manipulate probability so chaos is always minimized around him?
Again, I actually like your theory! I'm not saying that there can't be a cool explanation connecting Jones' existence intot he main plot of the comic, I'm just saying that there doesn't have to be. The boring explanation for Jones is that she's just one of the many, many, etheric things in the GC universe with no (mytho)logical basis for their existence.
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Post by mturtle7 on Aug 19, 2023 19:08:13 GMT
So Annie has apparently seen New People in the ether before (even though we didn't). Their ether presence seems rather... minimal. And indeed bismuthish. No I think we have, they appear greyed out and dull like the bodies of Forest creatures in court. I thought the same, but now that I'm looking through the archives, the only place we've seen the New People like that is here, during Loup's little flashback in Chapter 84, and it's actually sorta unclear whether that second panel is actually in the Ether or if it's just Loup stopping time for a moment. So now, like many others here, I'm REALLY confused about just how significant the current page's revelation is supposed to be... Isn't this the first time we've seen Annie look in the ether from within Zimmyland? When she checked Renard I didn't think about it but now it's obvious. I'm sure someone will promptly correct me if I'm wrong about this. One implication is that Zimmyland is NOT in the ether, right? Lots of surprises happening, and I'm sure more to come! This is another one where my memory didn't quite match what I found in the archives. Frustratingly, in "The Torn Sea", Annie looks into the ether several different times while she's in Zimmingham...but she always does it using her blinker stone, which is outside of the distortion at the time! So the current page is, in fact, the first time she's ever done this! ...On screen, at least. It's technically possible she tried it in "Spring Heeled, Part 2", since we never actually saw what the real Annie was doing in that scene. And she definitely never tried it in any of the other times she's been in Zimmyingham, so...yeah.
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Post by mturtle7 on Aug 4, 2023 6:39:31 GMT
Long time reader, first time poster here. Some thoughts from the top of my head, I didn't read the forums much in the past and perhaps all those things were already said before me. I just thought about some parallels between Kat and Annie and Zimmy and Gamma. Two strange girls, one with extraordinary talents and scary potential that the other one keeps at bay. Zimmy was just mistaken for Kat(one time she also cosplayed as Annie, not counting that), Gamma and Annie both have the power to channel Ether to help Zimmy. Both pairs dealt with some jealousy issues between them in the past, but Kat and Annie managed to resolve them and become even better friends, not sure about Zimmy and Gamma, but they seem better too. We know that Kat's mechanical goddess version perhaps exists in the universe where Annie dies in year one and is not there to influence Kat. Also, we know Zimmy has something in her past that she can't forgive herself for. I'm guessing it has to do with inflicting some harm on Gamma or not being able to save her from something. Zimmy also hates Kat's Thousand-Eyed Bird, which travels through time and perhaps exists in every dimension where Kat and Annie go to Court. I had a guess that the bird reminds Zimmy of all other versions of herself, maybe crimes committed by her in the past or in other dimensions. Remember, Zimms said that the split-person thing that happened to Antimony happened to people all the time where she is from. Did it happen to her or Gamma? Also, GC raises the topic of parenting pretty often, and we know nothing about the families of Zimmy and Gamma. Why were they alone in the first place, perhaps Zimmy got them separated from their families somehow and now feels guilty? I am excited for the action that is happening right now in the story and can't wait to know the answers to all the questions GC raised. Welcome to the forum, nyks! First of all, let me just say you should totally go check out the ol' Wild Speculation mega-thread, from the sound of it I think you'd have a blast there.
Plenty of people have noticed broad parallels between Zimmy/Gamma and Kat/Annie in general, but the details of interpretation vary a lot! Offhand, I don't think I've ever heard anyone point out the parallels in feelings of jealousy, or speculate that Zimmy once failed to save Gamma in the same way Alternate Kat failed to save Annie (and I've been here a pretty long time)! I will point out, though, that the "something terrible" Gamma told us Zimmy did happened " a long time ago, before we met." Which does make it a little more difficult for whatever it is to be something that harmed or failed to save Gamma (though not impossible! with reality-warping powers and a vague, secondhand, story in the mix, possibilities abound).
I vaguely remember Tom dropping hints via Formspring about Zimmy's family a long time ago...actually, yep, it's right over in the Gunnerkrigg wiki. Apparently they "haven't really noticed she's gone" but "If they could remember her, they would be glad she is gone." ...And now that I think about it, that definitely sounds like it could be the "something terrible", huh. Or at least adjacent to it.
Lastly, I will remind you that if you're waiting for answers to all the questions GC raised, you'll probably be waiting for a long time! I haven't heard any news about the comic ending soon, and even then, I'm willing to bet there'll still be plenty of little questions left trailing. In any case, GC has a long tradition of only ever answering important questions while raising several other ones at the same time, so if I were you, I'd get excited for questions to all the answers GC ever gave, rather than vice versa, haha.
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Post by mturtle7 on Jul 15, 2023 5:11:52 GMT
we don't know what Coyote said to "Loup" when the bone was returned but it really set him off, so it was probably something about how he was bound to fail and die. And it's true "Loup" did need to die for the plan for Coyote to die to come to fruition. One correction: what Coyote said after the goose bone was cracked was fully explicit, so I presume you mean the lake water, but actually even that was eventually revealed via flashback ( this page which I linked to in my original post, and the one preceding it).
Otherwise, what you're saying about Loup getting mroe frustrated by humans if the Newmans weren't around definitely makes more sense of the situation! Thanks!
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Post by mturtle7 on Jul 14, 2023 17:25:41 GMT
So in response to a post someone else wrote about the details of Coyote's plan, here's a deep dive about how I think what's happened in the comic fits together. There's some wildspec at the end about stuff that I think will happen. The Goal: Coyote wants to actually die a real and permanent death because he's bored and wants to defeat his own limitations; really dying is about the one thing that he can't do. It's either not about going into the ether at all or entering in a very mundane (for him) way. He's died many many times before but it just doesn't stick because he's a god, a powerful being of the etherium. In order to actually die he has to divest himself of his powers, and I think the reason for that is practical and not because of the rules of the celestial bureaucracy. Say you want to sink your money-pit of a houseboat to collect the insurance but it's got foam-filled pontoons. You can knock holes in the bottom but it still won't sink. It's metal so setting it on fire would just burn the interior. Even if you fill the whole houseboat with rocks it'll just capsize, the rocks will fall out, and the houseboat will pop back to the surface. First you've got to get rid of those pontoons, then you can punch a hole in the hull and it will sink. Ysengrin serves two main purposes in the plan and one lesser one. First, he's a receptacle for the bulk of Coyote's power. Second, he was the method for killing Coyote when Coyote wanted to be killed. Third, and least importantly, he was also the receptacle for the residuals of Coyote; after killing Coyote Ysengrin ate him. As long as Ysengrin's will remains strong Coyote won't reappear but Ysengrin isn't a god, he can't contain all that power forever and eventually he'll crack and Coyote will pop back to the surface. Therefore, while everything's properly dispersed and Coyote's dead, Ysengrin will have to die too. That's a problem, since Ysengrin has to be vicious and willful enough to kill Coyote and contain his powers for a while and thus isn't going to let just anyone kill him. [edit] Also, it was formsprung that Coyote can only die if he wants to, even with the giggleblade; it may be the case that someone with Coyote's power also can't die unless they want to so they'll have to be managed to an emotional state from which they want to die or at least won't mind dying. [/edit] Someone has to be groomed into fulfilling this role in the final part. An attractive member of the opposite sex would be the easiest way to fill this role. That's Antimony. But there's one last thing... if Coyote is dead dead then he can't do anything to safeguard his plan, and he can't enjoy seeing how his plan is working. By arranging some post-death reappearances Coyote can have his cake and eat it too, and the substance put into them probably also counts as powers offloaded. So... Step 1: Find a suitable patsy. Renard isn't interested enough in Coyote's power, though he does take one power which helps. Ysengrin, on the other hand, wants power and is suitably resentful over how humans see him. Give him some powers to keep him on the hook. Step 2: Wind up the patsy. Tormenting the crap out of Ysengrin makes him more angry and bitter. Take his memories to keep him in a holding pattern; that will keep him from doing any self-reflection. Step 3: Groom a suitable femme fatale. Surma had some of the right qualities but her relationships with Renard and Ysengrin didn't develop in a useful way. So, let's go with Surma's more vulnerable father-issue plagued daughter. Provide her some insight into Ysengrin's real nature. She'll need a weapon capable of cutting anything, even a god, for the final act. It can also serve as an apology so she doesn't get too upset about being manipulated. Step 4: Do a trial run Can we still bait Ysengrin into attacking Antimony on cue? Yes we can. Eat that memory too, can't have Ysengrin thinking too much about what's going on. Don't eat Antimony's memory of the attack, though. It's best if she knows exactly what he's capable of. Step 5: Give the patsy your powers He's been wanting them for a very long time. Step 6: Bait the patsy into killing you Now that Coyote offloaded offloaded his powers he can just screw with the patsy until he- No need, already done in step 5. Steps 7-8: Come back from the dead a few times to make sure the plan is on track and to bask in your own greatness. Make sure the patsy and the femme fatale think they don't have any options other than to run along the tracks you've set for them. The goose bone and lake water kept a key memory away from "Loup" for a while longer after he got the rest of them back... but mostly they were McGuffins to kill time while things played out... by which I mean this was the time period where the patsy was supposed to be creeping on the femme fatale, growing more and more obsessed with her. Step 9: Come back one last time to wind up the patsy to the maximum. Finally, the home stretch! No powers means Coyote can't screw with "Loup" the way he used to, but there's decades of memories of abuse that can be used to trigger him if Coyote pushes the right buttons. Make him do something that will force the femme fatale to kill him. Step 10: the femme fatale kills the patsy Coyote is now unrecoverable (well, this Coyote anyway). Does the patsy die too? Well, maybe the femme fatale can figure out how to bring Ysengrin back... but Coyote got what he wanted either way. One thing that I've left off is the possibility of a goose-wife, which would be some offloaded portion of Coyote that is thinking he or she is someone else, but is actually working to keep Coyote's plan on track. Coyote didn't know about the Noobmenz so unless the process was somehow automated (which is possible, either if Coyote planned it or if those icons of Coyote and Ysengrin in Gillite Wood were some sort of biproduct that spontaniously activated) it seems unlikely that Lana would be the goose-wife. Idra might be a good candidate, but I don't see the necessity for such a role. The known reappearances should be make a goose-wife redundant, and Ysengrin ate Coyote, and in so doing should have consumed any troublesome leftovers that could've been used for a goose-wife, but perhaps the goose-wife is one of the post-death preset reappearances. Coyote did work on this plan for decades, so he would have wanted to safeguard it as much as possible. (shrug) Most of this kinda makes sense, but the one thing that still baffles me is how this page and this one fit together. Like, the former was clearly supposed to be your Step 9, "wind the patsy up to the maximum" so he'd be led onto a path that would " force Annie's hand". But, all it really did was lead him to adopt the Jerrek persona. Which is apparently what Coyote wanted, so that Loup and Annie would fall in love. And then...what? How, exactly, was the mere act of confessing his love supposed to inevitably & immediately lead to a scene like this? It really feels like I'm missing some crucial piece here, but at the same time, I strongly suspect that piece was never really there in the first place.
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Post by mturtle7 on Jul 11, 2023 5:43:15 GMT
We haven't had Kat and Coyote meeting yet at all. Oh I do hope that Kat sees Coyote through her "boring-o-vision" as she did to the ROTD, and just sees him as a mangy old dog barking at her. That won't happen, simply because Coyote isn't a mangy old dog in some costume. He is literally a god, there are no smokes and mirrors like in the ROTD. You know, I should probably just be agreeing with you right now wholeheartedly, since debunking wild misinterpretations of Kat's powers is a slight passion of mine.
Except...now I can't help but wonder if this actually WOULD work, simply because deep down, perhaps uniquely among etheric beings, Coyote actually SEES HIMSELF to be a bunch of " smoke and mirrors" placed over " a mangy dog, scavenging in the desert for scraps"?! Like, does it technically count as an illusion for the purposes of Kat's powers if the omnipotent god who created it is so existentially f*cked in the head he considers it to basically be an illusion?! Like a psychosomatic symptom, only for magic... I've always assumed that the INTENT of the magic in question is what matters when deciding if Kat would perceive it differently from most, so if Coyote THINKS it is...but then...that's not really...
Ok, this is all making my head hurt, so I'm just going to stop thinking in circles about this nonsense. Hopefully this is all irrelevant, and Kat will just percieve Coyote just like everyone else does when they finally meet. If she doesn't...well...I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but it won't be pretty. Oh dear...
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Post by mturtle7 on Jul 6, 2023 6:00:12 GMT
I'm remembering Coyote's theory around putting the stars in the sky. He put them there, as did many other gods, but they've also always been there, and he believes it is because of the thoughts of man. There's a lot of New People watching here - the recovery of Everyone should become a myth and legend in its own right after all. And we've seen shifted Annies and time loops before. And with Kat having just gone through a breakup, its an interesting time for this. The tragic love is a story he's played before, with Renard. But maybe Annie and Jerrek aren't the actually intended audience now. I'm not 100% clear on what you're trying to imply will happen here, but it seems like this old copypasta of mine is going to be relevant, regardless:
"What I hate is that there are two particular Mysterious Things that just keep getting brought up over and over again, and it's always because people are misunderstanding what they mean in the exact same way, and I always feel the inexplicable need to correct them in the exact same way. I am seriously determined now to create two "stock corrections" that I will just copy-paste into a post whenever I feel the need to argue with someone about one of these two things, and be done with it. Here goes: a) Kat's "logic vision", which we first encountered in "Chapter 46: The Realm of the Dead" and later encountered in "Chapter 60: The Other Shore", does not actually apply to everything magic. I know that when we see this ability in play, it really feels like she's just seeing through all the magic, so this is still a perfectly reasonable mistake to make, but I still think it is a mistake. I say this because Kat can still see, for example, Ankou the Psychopomp as exactly the unnatural etheric creature he is. The same holds true for a variety of other magical beings & effects in the comic. I won't try to name every single one of those, the Ankou thing just makes a good example because he's a spooky guy kind of like the ROTD Recordkeeper guy, but Kat was unafraid of that guy while she was afraid of Ankou. The exact nature of Kat's ability is not exactly clear, but the common element between both times we see it in play is that it takes effects that are meant to etherically obfuscate the truth of something by making them look big, complex, and dramatic, and instead it makes Kat see them as simple and mundane things which she can (and does) easily handle with mundane skills. b) Coyote's Great Secret, which was first revealed by Coyote in "Chapter 39: The Great Secret" and is later expounded upon by Jones in "Chapter 40: The Stone", does not actually mean that you can make anything be real just by getting a large group of people to believe in it, nor does it mean everything etheric in the world of Gunnerkrigg comes precisely from a popular myth or legend. I honestly get why one might think this, since "belief magic" is a pretty popular concept in modern media, and both Coyote and Jones' explanation of it really emphasize how much power humans are supposed to have under this theory (and in particular, how scary that power is). However, there are a lot of problems with taking this at face value, not least of which is the fact that the "Great Secret" is nothing more than wild, evidence-free, speculation by Coyote, who is not the most unbiased or trustworthy source of info. But also, Coyote himself in his point that the Ether always exists unto itself, and the only reason etheric stuff resembles human myths is because human souls are absorbed into the ether only when they die. And furthermore, lots of etheric stuff that goes on in the world of Gunnerkrigg is either wholly an original creation of Tom Siddell's, or an old myth with a very original twist on it. For instance, City Fairies have plenty of qualities that aren't normally attributed to fairies by humans, and Coyote does lots of things in the story that are not featured in classical Native American mythology (e.g. committing suicide by wolf). So it stands to reason that even if one was to deliberately convince a very large group of humans of a specific piece of folklore, and then kill those humans so they're absorbed into the Ether, any etheric creatures that may result will probably not exist or act in precisely the way you intended."
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Post by mturtle7 on Jul 6, 2023 3:28:40 GMT
For added chaos, who is the third person contributing to the '...' bubble in panel 1? Well, it's clearly not pointing to Lana, the angle's all wrong. Obviously, it's actually Becky Ground, who happens to be using an invisibility device.
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Post by mturtle7 on Jul 6, 2023 3:20:26 GMT
I dunno, Loup being able to fully summon Ysengrin at will but not Coyete is feeling like a clue. Ysengrin has Coyete powers, and he could disguise/recreate himself as a Ysengrin/Coyete hybrid so convincing that even he would believe it. But it would still be Ysengrin. I say Ysengrin here because Loup is clearly much more Ysengrin than Coyote. We never once saw any of Coyote's personality shining through. I've always thought that Loup was Ysengrin with (most of) Coyote's power but none of his personality and memories... Ok, this line of thought is kind of weirding me out, because Renard literally once expressed the exact same doubts you guys are having now - i.e " are you REALLY a new creature?" - but in the EXACT OPPOSITE direction. Like, we had this entire arc which was about revealing that, in spite of appearances, he had a significant part of Ysengrin's personality in him after all. This was presented as a revelation, because before then, he was mostly portrayed as kind of a more d*ckish, insecure, and ignorant version of Coyote. He laughed and joked, threw petulant & chaotic temper tantrums, teased people with secret knowledge, and played tricks on them all the time - how the heck is that not "Coyote's personality shining through"?
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Post by mturtle7 on Jun 28, 2023 15:49:59 GMT
I dunno, we've established that the ether can create history after the fact. Different beings can have lived through different pasts and exist in the same present. Ether relies on belief, and as long as someone believes in one of the histories, that history isn't "wrong". Coyote is an ethereal trickster, and tricksters are always predicting things in advance that they should have no real way of knowing. The ether is going to keep changing Coyote's past to suit that narrative. I am sure that the Coyote of this moment always knew that this was going to happen. But I am not sure that any Coyote of any prior moment was going to be a Coyote who knew that this would happen. If something else had happened, he wouldn't be a Coyote with a wrong prediction, he would be a Coyote who always knew that other thing would happen instead. I read those first three sentences and immediately reached for my old copypasta rant debunking common misconceptions about the Ether...but then I read on and was like "Oh wait, nvm, that's actually a pretty sensible idea." The ether isn't as flexible or changeable as a lot of people tend to think it is after learning Coyote's Great Secret, but Coyote is kind of a special case, yeah. The nature of his reality in general is so fluid compared to everyone else's, I can actually totally see the Ether pulling these kinds of shenanigans just to make sure his tricks work.
...Incidentally, this is something that's always bugged me a little about Tom's version of Coyote. The Coyote I knew from folklore was a trickster, sure, but it was always kind of a toss-up in any given story whether he would be the kind of trickster who succeeds magnificently or fails comically. Tom's Coyote may have limitations, but when he actually sets out to do something, he just kinda...always wins? Which is, I mean, it's valid, but it's always felt weird to me.
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Post by mturtle7 on Jun 27, 2023 2:26:58 GMT
Remember, Coyote is dead! Ysengrin killed him and ate him. This is just the final appearance of the little piece he left behind to see what would happen. Assuming what he's said has been true, of course. We certainly can't rule out trickery and pranks on his part! But, if everything he has said in the past is true, then this will be the last time he appears to talk to Annie, and she still has to kill Loup with her laughing knife, and then do something that he thinks she'll be able to handle. I've always suspected that he means to go into the ether, taken there by Annie, but that could be wrong. Wierd too since he's a creature of the ether but I could see that striking him as funny and something he's never done! Or maybe she's supposed to inherit his power and do something with it. A thought - just because Coyote is dead, that doesn't mean that Ysengrin is. As for Loup - maybe she has to kill him to release Ysengrin? But it's all more complicated now that Loup has to blave. Maybe they'll just all sit down to a nice MLT instead of a triple death. Or should that be quadruple with Jerrek in the picture? Sadly, Coyote has confirmed that "when you use the tooth to pierce Loup's heart, you will be truly killing him, myself, and ysengrin". So, assuming Coyote's plan actually comes to fruition (which seems almost certain, based on his portrayal in the comic so far), we are indeed getting a triple death.
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Post by mturtle7 on Jun 23, 2023 22:03:37 GMT
Coyote: "It is all part of my plan." The plan: "Just make it up along the way." Step 1: Get somebody to kill me and eat me Step 2: Brag about how clever I am Step 3: ? (do whatever the hell I want haha)
Step 4: Profit
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Post by mturtle7 on Jun 21, 2023 15:08:08 GMT
Oh this portrayal of the inner Court sounds HORRIFYINGLY accurate to literally everything we've seen of them in the comic so far. Anja's computer getting dismissed as useless on the basis of a vague principle despite it's obvious utility, Renard getting singled out as an enemy to be contained long before he did literally anything remotely threatening, Antimony getting passed over as medium when everyone knew she was the most qualified candidate, Jones' power and prominence within the Court hierarchy despite (or rather, because of) her aggressively unaligned status, Tony getting randomly pulled back in against his will after years of absence and almost immediately rising to a position of significant power, Anja's shield magitech getting installed in all robots without them or her or indeed most of the Court knowing about it, Annie getting blamed for everything whenever Loup does something bad, Aata getting ousted and replaced by his longtime rival as soon as he slipped up even once...the list just goes on and on! We've been thinking of the Court as a mysterious and powerful ruler with a secret master plan for so long, when in fact literally all signs have ALWAYS pointed to a bloated, leaderless, bureaucracy in the midst of dying an agonizingly slow death... Some of these actions do make sense in a twisted way. Annie getting blamed for Loup's actions, for example - it's easier to blame a student in your midst than a powerful wolf-god outside the Court, beyond your reach. Like being angry at the world but unable to do anything about it, so you kick a stone or a tree, or slam a door - or take it out on someone smaller and weaker than yourself. Oh for sure! I'm not saying that all of these are unexplainable through any other means, just that, when taken all together, they fit imaginaryfriend's portrayal of the Court extremely well.
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Post by mturtle7 on Jun 17, 2023 21:49:52 GMT
I agree that the Court probably used Omega as a lynchpin for decision-making though I'd figure in practice it was more of an arbiter between factions than a guiding light. One or more people in leadership would propose courses of action, they'd use Omega to run things forward and see what the consequences of each would be, then form a consensus based on which outcome would be more desirable (politically and practically). [rant]The thing is, the problem with Omega first became apparent years ago when Antimony didn't die when she fell from the bridge. As an organization the Court has been unable to come up with a solution this whole time. The crisis of "Loup" attacking and the aftermath made things worse, of course, but they've very likely been faced with organizational paralysis this whole time. I've had the personal misfortune of dealing with that sort of thing many times irl. It happens when the informal power structure overgrows and chokes out the formal but no one individual or faction can actually assume preeminence. Sometimes everybody can see what urgently needs to be done but nobody dares to actually step up and do it, or even propose it out loud, for fear of what their rivals will do in response or other consequences to their own interests. Make one serious misstep and you're out, so best to not take any risky steps at all. Outside consultants can earn a pretty penny just by coming in and stating the blatantly obvious or, alternatively, siding with whichever faction will grease their palms sufficiently in return. The Court appears to lack any formal structure above heads of individual departments and that makes things worse. At some point in the past that probably wasn't so, as it's called a court, there's a hall with a throne-looking chair, and we know there was at least one noble (Sir Young). It's true that their population isn't that big but people who are naturally better leaders should have emerged just in the general course of things over the decades. The fact that apparently nobody's truly in charge implies that there's sufficient behind-the-scenes maneuvering that anyone who could be a threat to the informal structure never gets a chance to demonstrate their capability; indeed, anyone who could be a good leader is probably singled out early and subjected to slights and low frustrations until they wear out and permanently give up, becoming peaceful cogs in the greater machine. The emergence of a decent leader would be a direct threat to the authority of the (mediocre) current leaders of the various departments, therefore mediocracy and paralysis rules the day. I suppose it's a testament to the severity of the crisis that they can even accomplish minor things.[/rant] Oh this portrayal of the inner Court sounds HORRIFYINGLY accurate to literally everything we've seen of them in the comic so far. Anja's computer getting dismissed as useless on the basis of a vague principle despite it's obvious utility, Renard getting singled out as an enemy to be contained long before he did literally anything remotely threatening, Antimony getting passed over as medium when everyone knew she was the most qualified candidate, Jones' power and prominence within the Court hierarchy despite (or rather, because of) her aggressively unaligned status, Tony getting randomly pulled back in against his will after years of absence and almost immediately rising to a position of significant power, Anja's shield magitech getting installed in all robots without them or her or indeed most of the Court knowing about it, Annie getting blamed for everything whenever Loup does something bad, Aata getting ousted and replaced by his longtime rival as soon as he slipped up even once...the list just goes on and on! We've been thinking of the Court as a mysterious and powerful ruler with a secret master plan for so long, when in fact literally all signs have ALWAYS pointed to a bloated, leaderless, bureaucracy in the midst of dying an agonizingly slow death...
EDIT: This has brought on a realization for me, that through this lens, "Omega" is actually probably the Elon Musk equivalent, the hotshot who's had too many sycophants' hyperbolic praise go to their head and has been made far too central to too many of the organization's systems so now they're making a series of terrible decisions that result in cascading failures across the board which they and their supporters absolutely refuse to acknowledge.
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Post by mturtle7 on Jun 7, 2023 21:48:11 GMT
I love that Kat made it a Big Red Button. She knows Annie's good with those. It's a ruse - that's just a garage door opener, but Kat needed to put on a show for Loup. Against all evidence to the contrary, I choose to believe this is canon, because my brain honestly just can't handle the absurdity of Kat loudly declaring that she's going to leave now, and that she sure hopes nothing bad happens to this tiny, fragile, anti-Loup device, RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM.
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Post by mturtle7 on May 21, 2023 0:23:06 GMT
With this in mind, I found the revelations over the last weeks to be disappointing. We both find out that robots can lie and that Annie and Kat already knew this information, so there was not much reader's advantage to speak of; it was all charades. I see what you're trying to say; but I don't see why the revelations would be disapointing. I don't remember it ever being stated in the comic that robots CAN'T lie; has it been stated somewhere, or is it just the common assumption in sci-fi works that machines can't say any non-true statements? Even if robots cannot technically lie, Robot is not... the robot-robot he once was. We already see that he has imagination and wishes and desires, and that he is capable of duplicity (either by tricking Loup, or by betraying Kat). Even if Court robots were originally unable to lie, I don't see why it would be far-fetched to think that Robot, with all the augmentations and relationships he has been through, should not have been able to develop this ability. What I'm trying to say is, I cannot see why whether Robot was able to lie or not was such a crucial hint that we were deprived of? This is one of those absurdly-long callbacks Tom likes to do sometimes - waaayyyy back in Chapter 12, there was a comedic scene where Annie claims that robots never lie, and the guard-bot she was just lying to cheerfully confirms this as truth. Granted, in that same scene Annie convinces the guard bot that she herself is a robot because she's wearing antennae, so it's not like that was ever, like, 100% certain confirmation of canon. But none of us really had a reason to NOT accept it as canon, either. To my knowledge, there's never been another instance in the comic of a robot lying to someone outright, and they have plenty of other eccentricities which make a "incapable of lying" seem like an entirely plausible trait for them. So Kat saying now that all Court robots are fully capable of lying (note: she's not just saying Robot can lie, so any special qualities he may or may not have are not relevant here) DOES feel like a rug just got pulled out from under the audience, just a little bit. And not in a fun way.
The headcanon I've had for a while, which I actually really liked, is that almost none of the robots can lie, except for the Seraphs; their unique design and role as 'secret police' make them just barely able to grasp the concept enough to be able to contradict an explicitly-stated truth, hence all the ridiculous signs which the Serpahs have unreasonable confidence in (in my headcanon, this also includes this similar gag sign in chapter 3). And you know what? I'm just gonna keep this headcanon. It's WAY more fun and feels like it fits the way robots have always acted way more than just going "oh all that was just a running gag and robots were totally capable of lying this whole time."
EDIT: Welp, I made this post before noticing there was a second page of comments, and I paid for it. Turns out Runningflame and imaginaryfriend were able to provide way better explanations than mine! Oh well.
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Post by mturtle7 on May 17, 2023 18:41:47 GMT
Is this the part where the villain explain how they trapped the hero instead of actually doing something about it?"You sly dogwolf! You got me monologuing!"
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Post by mturtle7 on May 17, 2023 18:24:13 GMT
Sure, but, speaking as a sysadmin, once the number of systems exceeds a certain threshold, they all start blurring together and you can't really keep track of them anymore. I also think that if Kat had a link to, or control over, the NP's, then that would be a pretty serious violation of their privacy and individuality. I just don't think that GC is that sort of comic. Kat grew up in the Court, which is a total surveillance state, filled to the brim with surveillance devices in every house plus tracking its inhabitants through their food and no one except Jack and Tony ever seemed to have any problem with that. Plus, for most of the comic, their good friend Renard was under the direct verbal control of either Annie or Kat, and no one saw anything wrong with that either. So, in my opinion, GC is absolutely that sort of comic. I would agree, except the thing is that Annie and Renard had a whole arc where their relationship shifted from "girl casually using her magical-enslavement powers to keep a mischievous demon in line" to "girl reluctantly keeps her magical-enslavement powers over her spirit friend, at the friend's request"; in other words, she used to be ok with that sort of thing, and then stopped being ok with it (and imho, the comic's overall tone shifted correspondingly). Similarly, Kat may have been 100% blase about the surveillance state at first, but I'm pretty sure that changed once some people sat her down and specifically explained to her why this was bad and dangerous for her. So I'm gonna have to agree with @sky Schemer here, not because the comic isn't that dark, but because it doesn't make sense for the characters at this point.
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Post by mturtle7 on May 10, 2023 0:39:59 GMT
One of the overarching themes of the comic (in my interpretation, at least) is that the Court - and, analogously, most real-world giant political entities - isn't a literal court of a few scheming nobles and/or a single, all-powerful ruler, but rather a bureaucratic, scientific, architectural, and social system, which is the way it is because countless numbers of people across multiple generations have enacted their own incremental changes upon it in whatever ways they individually thought was right. To put it another way, the Court is not a who, either singular or plural, but an it, a thing in which individual people are interchangeable and expendable. We see this in the ridiculous parody of a throne room the Court keeps as an audience room, where the school headmaster hardly even bothers putting up a facade of true command. We see it in the conspiracy to kill Jeanne, where a little inventor creates a scheme at the request of a military man and with the reluctant approval of a nameless crowd of others, in order to create a critical piece of infrastructure which subsequent generations simply forget about. We see it in Paz's first little pep talk to Kat about the fallacy of seeing the Court as any kind of monolith. In general, whenever "the Court" is visually depicted, it often appears as a crowd of faceless people in no particular order, a metaphor which is taken up to 11 when the person who introduces their plan for exodus is literally featureless, a person who could be practically anyone without any tangible impact on their role in the story, even while they literally explain in detail the Court's entire end game. As todd themself has pointed out, over and over again, we've been introduced to people with real, tangible, power in the Court - e.g. Donny, Tony, Juliette & Arthur, the Headmaster, Aata - and over and over again, we are shown the massive limits of their authority (I find the image of Llanwellyn raging and being held back by yet another faceless person a particularly poignant instance of this). I think it's rather missing the point to assume that every time that happens, it's just because we haven't gone far enough, we haven't reached the real "inner circle" whose members know all the important things in the Court and get to do whatever they want! On the contrary, I've taken it to mean that there is no "inner circle" - or rather, even the innermost circle within the hierarchy of power in the Court is so wide that no individual member of it has all that much power. Granted, it could be argued that there's one more level of hierarchical power beyond that innermost circle...but, I'm pretty sure that even when the identity of the Omega Device (like a lot of people here, I'm pretty sure it's/they're a person) is revealed, it won't be framed as the reveal of the Secret Mastermind who's been controlling everything this whole time. Omega probably just sees themself as another tiny cog in the system, trying to provide accurate predictions according to their superiors' demands.
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Post by mturtle7 on May 5, 2023 18:25:51 GMT
Huh. I interpretted that as "you first made me think you were into me, insisted we go out together, brought along your girlfriend, ran away with no warning leaving me alone, disappeared for days, reappear as if nothing was wrong, and I'm beginning to get annoyed." You do all remember that Jerrek didn't run away, right? Lana dragged him out of the train. I mean, from her (not especially keen) perspective, the difference between "got dragged out by" and "ran out with" is probably kind of thin. Especially since she doesn't seem to have noticed how weak and sickly Jerrek was getting at the time.
Also, all the rest of that stuff is still definitely true, and more than deserving of a "single raised eyebrow" look from Annie.
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Post by mturtle7 on May 5, 2023 18:17:25 GMT
The only robot we know of that has researched (read about) human behavior and thus might have a different idea of how to comfort Kat is busy with her own boyfriend. But will show up soon! I'm guessing the rest are either working on a very basic working set of information Kat or Robot gave them or are totally guessing. I think the former is a little more likely than the latter just because a lot seem to have come up with "give flowers" rather than just "say sympathetic words". But even knowing to do that is interesting - what would a pipe maintenance robot know about comforting a human that just lost her first relationship partner? So my cookies are on "basic information provided with new body". This could also just all go back to Lana in a different way. Someone had to have explained the difference between "close friend" and "romantic relationship" to the robots/NP at some point, and the only candidates I can see are S13 and Lana. In short, I don't think this is random or lack of uniqueness - I just think they all got their info on this topic from the same source and haven't yet developed their own relationships. Lana will probably be the first NP to experience a breakup or other romantic disaster for herself... Personally, I'd like to think that being a pipe maintenance robot doesn't actually exclude one from being able to, say, watch romantic comedies via an Internet streaming service, and thus learn all SORTS of (horribly inaccurate) things about human romance. Lana thinks she's uniquely knowledgeable, but she's actually only unique for being a huge bookworm.
Also (or alternatively), it doesn't actually take much to get even humans to jump on a bandwagon once they see it, so the explanation for why all the robots are doing the same thing for Kat doesn't really have to be any more complicated than "one robot gave her flowers and she seemed to appreciate it, so now literally everyone is doing it in order to prove their devotion to the Angel."
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Post by mturtle7 on Apr 12, 2023 5:20:29 GMT
Forum Q: Did Kat become non-human when she pressed the button that led to needing the reboot? Like, is she non-human now? As a philosopher, my personal answer is YES. Because on top of an extended mind, which she had already begun to have before, she is fully beyond ordinary human capabilities now, and able to see and hear and "move" beyond her own body. But I guess some subset of her present being still involves a human body, so I'm open to contrary opinions. I...I get where you're from here, bud, but I think you should know that as a disabled person, any argument that says a character is officially "non-human" due to having physical and/or mental powers "beyond ordinary human capabilities" makes me WILDLY uncomfortable, because it kinda unconsciously implies that if some has a body and/or mind BELOW "ordinary human capabilities", then they are officially less than human, and that kind of logic has, uh...not exactly been used for anything good, historically. Just saying.
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Post by mturtle7 on Apr 10, 2023 18:50:20 GMT
Probably not, but: What if this hasn't been Kat addressing them this whole time, ever since the "BANG!"? Kat could be in a coma, and something (the omega device itself? one or more people working on it?) hacked into her computer systems, but can't yet get past Kat's defenses to get into her brain due to security defenses Kat put in place. (The initial attempt to brute force its way in, the moment she connected, could have caused the overload, or the overload could have been deliberate to render her unconscious and unable to fight back or warn Annie and Paz.) So the intruder needs to do some phishing (possibly convenienced by Kat having previously designated Annie and Paz as trusted emergency contacts with some emergency access to her systems). Kat could become something bad not due to her own will, but due to "account" takeover. Apologies if anyone else has suggested this yet. This may be an apt moment to warn: Folks, please be even more careful than before about weird emergency calls you receive. AIs can now clone people's voices passably with 30 seconds of audio from a Facebook or TikTok video, and that's already been capitalized upon by scammers. This would fit. Robot wouldn't want to permanently hurt Kat but he's already done stuff like hijack the Cruise before. Kat has a possible problem in the workshop and has for years in story at this point.
He has been waiting for the only perfect form there is. Staying a CPU for a while was a small price to pay, for the power to integrate perfectly into the Angel's mechanical systems. Now he can make the Angel become what he always knew she could become, and make himself what he always knew *he* could become, when both are freed of mortal guise. Now, the New Age can truly begin.
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Post by mturtle7 on Apr 10, 2023 18:21:28 GMT
I RETURN! And man, am I glad I took that break. It looks like my concerns about the way Kat, her work, and the way Paz and Annie see both of those things have been...well, if not entirely resolved, at least addressed enough so that I don't feel like tearing my hair out in frustration anymore. I am so, SO, relieved that Paz finally got to clarify that she doesn't think Kat is going to end the world or something, but the new areas (omniscience, massively integrated networks) and methods (self-experimentation) of study Kat's getting into are too *stressful* for her. Arguably, it's actually super mature of her to recognize her own limits in this way and act on them without putting the blame on Kat. Although of course, on the other hand, trying to break up with your girlfriend by saying "It's not you, it's me" and "You'll be much happier on your own, you'll see" has not, historically speaking, gone SUPER well for a lot of people IRL, and for good reason. As a computer scientist, the benefits Kat is actually getting from this implant strike me as a lot of vague technobabble, but honestly that's how 90% of the science in this comic has always been portrayed, so it's only a mild annoyance for me. And incidentally, I agree with other people here (e.g. Nika, Gemminie) that "You'll be much happier on your own, you'll see" happens to also be the exact sentiment behind that smile in the last panel. To elaborate: Paz really really wants to not feel guilty about breaking up with Kat, so she's trying to be Very Supportive and Very Happy For Her, which I find to be an adorably flawed and human response, honestly.
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Post by mturtle7 on Feb 18, 2023 23:50:37 GMT
Oh no, going off some other speculation on reddit: If Annie didn't implant the interface, the chip and computer's connection is etheric and Kat believes its there, maybe it will work anyway? Hah that's interesting. Considering that Kat is already on her path to literal godhood this occasion might bring her even closer to it. And be way more dangerous since she will not be limited by the abilities of her computer but only the power of her own belief. I see it now. But then, who gets the chip? I mean, that is sooooo much Chekov armory there... I don't think it's about who gets the chip since they might as well simply destroy it. If reddit theory which was stated earlier is correct and Kat is able to gain chip's power through her sheer belief in its ability to do stuff... the sudden knowledge of it NOT being there is a rather dangerous occasion. Everything she achieved through the power of the chip might just go "poof" at the most inappropriate time. And yeah she will surely feel betrayed if that happens. I can imagine her being simply devastated by that fact. People should see Pyradonis's signature more often. In the Gunnerkrigg-verse, things don't become real at the moment someone starts believing them. People have to die and go to ether for their beliefs to have an effect. Edit: And that is only true IF Coyote's theory is true. That's not stated anywhere ("the world continues to spin" doesn't say much of anything, and what are we to make of Zimmy and others who can change the state of things at will, unless she's just straight dying every time she Birminghams), and Coyote can't knowingly lie. Besides which the robot children are deathless golems with beeps and boops for souls, and Godhead Kat visibly breaks the ether, so there's no reason to think the same rules apply. Kat's also had her Make Things Boring powers this whole time so we can infer that the ether in general affects her differently to most people. Alright fine I'll make ONE more post, but that's it. And that's just because I'm kind of perversely happy to have a chance to use this little block of text in exactly the way I once imagined, when I wrote it back in August last year (and gave it to pyradonis for his signature). "What I hate is that there are two particular Mysterious Things that just keep getting brought up over and over again, and it's always because people are misunderstanding what they mean in the exact same way, and I always feel the inexplicable need to correct them in the exact same way. I am seriously determined now to create two "stock corrections" that I will just copy-paste into a post whenever I feel the need to argue with someone about one of these two things, and be done with it. Here goes: a) Kat's "logic vision", which we first encountered in "Chapter 46: The Realm of the Dead" and later encountered in "Chapter 60: The Other Shore", does not actually apply to everything magic. I know that when we see this ability in play, it really feels like she's just seeing through all the magic, so this is still a perfectly reasonable mistake to make, but I still think it is a mistake. I say this because Kat can still see, for example, Ankou the Psychopomp as exactly the unnatural etheric creature he is. The same holds true for a variety of other magical beings & effects in the comic. I won't try to name every single one of those, the Ankou thing just makes a good example because he's a spooky guy kind of like the ROTD Recordkeeper guy, but Kat was unafraid of that guy while she was afraid of Ankou. The exact nature of Kat's ability is not exactly clear, but the common element between both times we see it in play is that it takes effects that are meant to etherically obfuscate the truth of something by making them look big, complex, and dramatic, and instead it makes Kat see them as simple and mundane things which she can (and does) easily handle with mundane skills. b) Coyote's Great Secret, which was first revealed by Coyote in "Chapter 39: The Great Secret" and is later expounded upon by Jones in "Chapter 40: The Stone", does not actually mean that you can make anything be real just by getting a large group of people to believe in it, nor does it mean everything etheric in the world of Gunnerkrigg comes precisely from a popular myth or legend. I honestly get why one might think this, since "belief magic" is a pretty popular concept in modern media, and both Coyote and Jones' explanation of it really emphasize how much power humans are supposed to have under this theory (and in particular, how scary that power is). However, there are a lot of problems with taking this at face value, not least of which is the fact that the "Great Secret" is nothing more than wild, evidence-free, speculation by Coyote, who is not the most unbiased or trustworthy source of info. But also, Coyote himself in his point that the Ether always exists unto itself, and the only reason etheric stuff resembles human myths is because human souls are absorbed into the ether only when they die. And furthermore, lots of etheric stuff that goes on in the world of Gunnerkrigg is either wholly an original creation of Tom Siddell's, or an old myth with a very original twist on it. For instance, City Fairies have plenty of qualities that aren't normally attributed to fairies by humans, and Coyote does lots of things in the story that are not featured in classical Native American mythology (e.g. committing suicide by wolf). So it stands to reason that even if one was to deliberately convince a very large group of humans of a specific piece of folklore, and then kill those humans so they're absorbed into the Ether, any etheric creatures that may result will probably not exist or act in precisely the way you intended."
(Also: slightly awkward to say this now, but welcome to the forum, sosleepy ! I'm not normally this surly, I swear. Regardless of my, uh, thorough disagreement with your opinion in this particular case, I do hope you have a good time on this forum and don't burn out like I just did. See ya!)
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Post by mturtle7 on Feb 18, 2023 23:30:19 GMT
Looks like these two are up to something sneaky. While I do wish they'd simply TALKED to Kat about how they feel, she's pretty far gone into her own mania and probably wouldn't have listened to a word they had to say. I have a feeling they're gonna do something that demonstrates the real-world consequences of what Kat wants to do, something that will make her realize sometimes the words 'No, you've gone too far' are those she needs to hear. Maybe trap her in some sort of illusion where she sees how she could turn into a techno-goddess who is unable to relate to the people around her any longer? See, I've noticed a number of people saying stuff along those lines, both in these forum threads and in the comments underneath the comic, but how the hell was it established that Kat was "too far gone into her own mania"?!? I'm pretty sure people are just saying that b/c the chapter title has clued them into the fact that that's supposed to be what happens in this chapter, but...based on what we know of Kat's character and behaviour patterns, there's been absolutely no sign that she isn't entirely lucid and open to criticism right now.
Like, sure she hasn't really responded to Annie and Paz's non-smiling faces, but that's such an ambiguous and neutral signal (it could signal disapproval, but it could also signal disinterest, or a any number of other things) that I'd be more worried if she DID express open concern over it. And Kat has been shown in the past to get too absorbed in her work sometimes, but that's only been shown as a concern when it doesn't make her happy - quite a far cry from her current mood, no? And when her work has been shown as a concern, the solution has, sensibly enough, been to talk to her about it! And even if we accept that the mere act of asking someone to implant a computer chip underneath her skin is evidence of "going too far" - I ask you, is it really any worse than using the arrow to mediate Renard's official return to Annie?!? When that happened, Renard immediately starting voicing objections, and while Kat did seem a little offended at that she still responded with clear and logical arguments. So what the heck sets this situation apart?!? Why is Kat suddenly being treated like a dangerous mental patient?!? Argh...
P.S. I'm sorry to say, I think I'm going to try and take a break from the comic, for at least a couple of months. ...And the forum, too, though that's going to be harder. My relationship with the comic has been getting more and more antagonistic and less and less fun lately (e.g. this very post, see above), and while I still love talking with you guys on the forum, I don't really think I can really do so without also keeping up with the comic. Clicking over to this site in my spare time is going to be a tough habit to break, but I think it'll be for the best. So, yeah...see you in April, I guess! I hope the comic becomes a more enjoyable experience for me by then!
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Post by mturtle7 on Feb 4, 2023 17:37:57 GMT
If Paz has been chipping lab animals then she probably knows what to do. But, seriously, why would ANYONE EVER chip themselves is beyond me. That's like, the first step to a weird dystopian totalitarian steampunk society, I thought everyone knew that?!?!?!?!? Don't do iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit I mean, like...at this point, I can tell that's obviously where the comic's going, but there isn't REALLY a reason inserting a computer chip into the back of one's neck should be somehow Inherently Disastrous. It's just technology, and we use technology inside our bodies all the time. Sure, one could probably use it for nefarious reasons, but one could also use it for beneficial reasons, just like anything else. Brain-Computer Interfaces are already super important to disabled people, for rather obvious reasons! And able-bodied people still often crave the kind of convenient and immediate control over digital tech that a sci-fi-like implanted chip could give them, not to mention the potential usefulness of something that can't be easily stolen or lost. There's nothing about implanted chips that say they have to be used for totalitarian government surveillance. Like, if Kat just made this so she could connect to her Not-Magic Computer better, there's no damn reason it should be any more ominous than her previous upgrades to the Not-Magic Computer.
The fact that Kat is asking Annie and Paz to do this instead of Tony, though, is a pretty damn huge red flag no matter which way you look at it. Oh well.
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Post by mturtle7 on Feb 1, 2023 19:47:27 GMT
Now I'm curious. What would the Court be packing up first? Test tubes? Children's souls? Snacks? Why are you listing those like they're 3 separate things? Annie finally graduates to a character who warns about stuff, and Kat just continues to do crazy genius kids adventure comic type stuff?? Somebody get Red to come and tell her off for 12 pages minimum
(sorry for the double post btw)
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