[1715] Not what I am!

[Daedalus]

Oh boy.

This is when you run.




My first thoughts:

SPOILER: Click to show

My apologies to anyone who planned to sleep tonight.

[wombat]

This is going well.

[Daedalus]

Initially, when I saw the many-pupiled eye, I thought Coyote might be involved. But on second thought, I don't think that's likely.

Whatever happened, though, I think it's indicative of the Green Arrow screwing with her perception...somehow. Perhaps we'll learn that she sees everyone who trespasses as the killers of her lover*?

*this would not actually make sense because she clearly saw Parley in Chapter 30.

Whatever Diego did, it's an abomination. But it also has quite a self-defense mechanism.

I wonder if the bottom implies she gained a Literal Split Personality like Annie. I doubt it, though.

[Sky Schemer]

Do you think she's noticed yet?

[Daedalus]

Aug 26, 2016 7:06:15 GMT Sky Schemer said:

Do you think she's noticed yet?

Nah.

[arf]

Chill, Jeanne. You've already met most of them*.

*The rest of you? This is the part where you run away.

[arf]

Aug 26, 2016 7:00:28 GMT Daedalus said:

My first thoughts:

SPOILER: Click to show

My apologies to anyone who planned to sleep tonight.

That may be ethereal Kat when she gets *really* annoyed.

[west]

Aug 26, 2016 7:00:28 GMT Daedalus said:

Oh boy.

This is when you run.

You'd only die tired.
Now, as to whether they -- and specifically Parley right now -- can talk fast enough?  That they've survived two meetings with her is enough sign that she's holding back on them, and they have a rather pressing need to work out why she did so.  I wonder whether it will throw her off that the group comprises three pairs of people who love each other in their own ways, since it seems to be something she's sensitive to.

[birdwhisperer]

I hope they have a plan for this, but I have a sinking feeling that it's not going to be effective... they really have no idea how this device works and what will happen when you fiddle with it. I'm sure a lot of research and planning happened off screen but I can't help but feel that they don't know enough about what they're dealing with.

Also, the thing I most hope to see from all this is what happened to the elf-boyfriend's soul. Is he a ghost somewhere too? Trapped in/under the arrow? Destroyed completely? (I hope not. ) Hopefully we'll encounter him, and the best ultimate happy ending I can imagine is him and Jeanne being reunited in death.

[Daedalus]

Aug 26, 2016 7:11:49 GMT arf said:

Aug 26, 2016 7:00:28 GMT Daedalus said:

My first thoughts:

SPOILER: Click to show

My apologies to anyone who planned to sleep tonight.

That may be ethereal Kat when she gets *really* annoyed.

(To give proper attribution...it's an image from a Magic: The Gathering card, created by Clint Cearley. Credit for the transformation itself goes to Emrakul, the Promised End, the Aeons Torn, Scourge of the Gatecrash, Chiefest Calamity of Innistrad, first of her name.)

[bedinsis]

Some appropriate music:



Speculation time: Smitty has in a previous page(which I cannot locate at the moment) shown that he must be careful not to tip the odds too much in his favour, lest his own happiness come at the expanse at something more important(the page in question showed him getting Parley out of helping a slain ally). I suspect we'll see this in play now, i.e. Smitty will fail, and teleport him and Parley out of there. Though we'll probably see some swordsmanship between her and Jeanne first.

[west]

Aug 26, 2016 7:17:06 GMT birdwhisperer said:

I hope they have a plan for this, but I have a sinking feeling that it's not going to be effective... they really have no idea how this device works and what will happen when you fiddle with it. I'm sure a lot of research and planning happened off screen but I can't help but feel that they don't know enough about what they're dealing with.

Also, the thing I most hope to see from all this is what happened to the elf-boyfriend's soul. Is he a ghost somewhere too? Trapped in/under the arrow? Destroyed completely? (I hope not. ) Hopefully we'll encounter him, and the best ultimate happy ending I can imagine is him and Jeanne being reunited in death.

Scientific Test #1: Poke it.
Scientific Test #2: Yank it.
(You know it's working from the *boink* sound.)

[madragoran]

"Oooh i got a great idea! Why don't we take 6 people down into an inaccessible gorge and try to hoodwink a vengeful ghost into letting us steal an artifact! Ah did I mention the ghost is deadly? No? How about that maybe the artifact is wired to the ghost's being? I think just one person that can teleport itself and a passenger out of the chasm and who is also going to be our fighter is enough yes?"

I will start preparing for dead people.

[zbeeblebrox]

I'm confident they have a plan for dealing with all of this

[Daedalus]

Aug 26, 2016 7:31:54 GMT zbeeblebrox said:

I'm confident they have a plan for dealing with all of this

I think their plan was Blue. The only other Chekhov's Gun left unfired is the Giggleblade.

[Rea]

Aug 26, 2016 7:31:39 GMT madragoran said:

"Oooh i got a great idea! Why don't we take 6 people down into an inaccessible gorge and try to hoodwink a vengeful ghost into letting us steal an artifact! Ah did I mention the ghost is deadly? No? How about that maybe the artifact is wired to the ghost's being? I think just one person that can teleport itself and a passenger out of the chasm and who is also going to be our fighter is enough yes?"

I will start preparing for dead people.

I don't think most of them being there could have been avoided.

• That nincompoop is needed to hoodwink Jeanne.
• Parley is needed for teleportation and fighting
• Kat is needed to locate the arrow
• Annie is needed to go into the ether and pick up the arrow
• Smitty is needed for "good luck" (it's likely that things would have gone wrong earlier without him there)
• Admittedly, Red didn't have to be there but she apparently insisted

[Daedalus]

Aug 26, 2016 7:49:12 GMT Rea said:

Aug 26, 2016 7:31:39 GMT madragoran said:

"Oooh i got a great idea! Why don't we take 6 people down into an inaccessible gorge and try to hoodwink a vengeful ghost into letting us steal an artifact! Ah did I mention the ghost is deadly? No? How about that maybe the artifact is wired to the ghost's being? I think just one person that can teleport itself and a passenger out of the chasm and who is also going to be our fighter is enough yes?"

I will start preparing for dead people.

I don't think most of them being there could have been avoided.

• That nincompoop is needed to hoodwink Jeanne.
• Parley is needed for teleportation and fighting
• Kat is needed to locate the arrow
• Annie is needed to go into the ether and pick up the arrow
• Smitty is needed for "good luck" (it's likely that things would have gone wrong earlier without him there)
• Admittedly, Red didn't have to be there but she apparently insisted

"The best-laid plans" and all that.

[grahamf]

[saardvark]

Jeanne's eyes are naturally green. The multiple eyes might just indicate the last vestiges of her Blue-induced illusion being ripped away. Maybe also, in a whirl (of green arrow-enhanced perception?) she "sees" or senses the six people down there with her (hence the six pupils)?

[saardvark]

... and could the green streaks in the upper left indicate that Annie has pulled out the arrow?  the previous frame shows the arrow completely running her through...

[Fen]

Oooh dear.

As long as we're collating information about the arrow, there's some interesting conversation on page 1341.

[mishyana]

Yikes. Is there even *anything* potentially not terrible about this situation? Also, what are the potential ramifications of removing Jeanne as a guardian? I'm certainly not arguing in favor of what they did to her, but surely there was some reason for condemning her spirit to eternally guarding the bottom of the chasm beyond "We're huge jerks."

[arf]

Jeanne appears to have chosen the red pill and rent through Blue's illusion*, in contrast with Annie a while back. Similar expressions. Maybe they should have got Red to bring along a pair of scissors?


* (a reference that's only just occurred to me!)

[foresterr]

Aug 26, 2016 8:22:49 GMT Fen said:

Oooh dear.

As long as we're collating information about the arrow, there's some interesting conversation on page 1341.

Diego was some kinda proto - programmer of the ether, so it stands to reason what his device did was HACK REALITY All it needed was to be plugged into the right interface. Maybe that's another piece of the rope cutter arrow - etheric string train of thought. Those are not strings, those are cables, and they carry a signal. So the arrow was a hacking spike Love binds... you just need to substitute some variables, and suddenly Jeanne is bound to Annan waters forever (because true love never dies ). Flip another bit, and it turns to eternity of hate.

I sort of wonder about those other departments. Other possible afterlives (other than being a ghost), before you are inevitably thrown into the recycle bin? I guess Diego had to block every single exit possible.

[zaferion]

A couple things:

1) This page has a lot of similarities to Anthony meeting those things outside of our reality. Jeanne's eye and Anthony's face are particularly striking; it's the same idea and they're in the same location on their pages. Furthermore, these last two pages share that squicky, body horror aesthetic that entire story did. Whatever those guys did with this arrow reeeeeally screwed things up for this page to share any similarities to those creatures.

2) What has me more concerned is this little bit of foreshadowing about Smitty's powers. Basically, if Smitty twists fate/probability too much the side effects could be bad. Like Eggers getting mortally wounded or, for a less dramatic example, when Smitty's attempt to throw the blinker stone into the canyon resulted in (harmlessly) hitting a bird so the blinker stone could land where they needed it. Since it's been teased before, it seems weird for Tom to point-blank admit this drawback of Smitty's powers if it's not going to have repercussions in the future. We've never seen Smitty in a life or death combat situation, only lower octane settings like accidentally smacking a bird or ruining Dr. Disaster's simulations. This is all to say that my biggest concern now is that Smitty will overreact to the situation and, in turn, so will his powers. By trying to make things right, he would instead make things worse. Like, Jeanne lunges at Parley, but it's an attack that Parley could easily defend against, but Smitty doesn't know that. So he panics and his powers make Parley teleport out of the way, but making Parley dodge the attack rather than parry or redirect it causes Jeanne to impale and kill Red or the blue one. (Side note: how tragic would it be if the blue one died before ever getting her name while doing the very thing that's going to get her a name.)

Anyway, yeah, things aren't looking bright for our pubescent heroes.

[Jelly Jellybean]

Aug 26, 2016 7:49:12 GMT Rea said:

Aug 26, 2016 7:31:39 GMT madragoran said:

"Oooh i got a great idea! Why don't we take 6 people down into an inaccessible gorge and try to hoodwink a vengeful ghost into letting us steal an artifact! Ah did I mention the ghost is deadly? No? How about that maybe the artifact is wired to the ghost's being? I think just one person that can teleport itself and a passenger out of the chasm and who is also going to be our fighter is enough yes?"

I will start preparing for dead people.

I don't think most of them being there could have been avoided.

• That nincompoop is needed to hoodwink Jeanne.
• Parley is needed for teleportation and fighting
• Kat is needed to locate the arrow
• Annie is needed to go into the ether and pick up the arrow
• Smitty is needed for "good luck" (it's likely that things would have gone wrong earlier without him there)
• Admittedly, Red didn't have to be there but she apparently insisted

Red was the most disposable of the six, but now Jeanne has shattered Blue's illusion and Blue's character is no longer necessary for the plot.

[atteSmythe]

Jeanne said:

Oh! Guests! I'll put on some tea and biscuits

[ctso74]

Aug 26, 2016 7:45:12 GMT Daedalus said:

Aug 26, 2016 7:31:54 GMT zbeeblebrox said:

I'm confident they have a plan for dealing with all of this

I think their plan was Blue. The only other Chekhov's Gun left unfired is the Giggleblade.

It's a long shot, but the Tic-Tocs carried Annie to the correct side of the river, when she fell off. I'm thinking the etherical eyes are Jeanne's, but Zimmy mentioned the Tic-Tocs' eyes "watching" her. They may watch Jeanne, as well. Of course, they're a Chekhov's Gun that could go off like a Deus Ex Machina, without anyone learning anything of use, so...

I'm thinking things are about to get real ugly. If there isn't a safety net, that the plot hasn't yet revealed, they are in some deep water(pun intended).

[saardvark]

if Annie gets to the surface quickly and seals the arrow in Kat's container, maybe Jeanne will suddenly be released of its malevolent pressure and mellow out a bit ... I hope!

[Grabix]

Aug 26, 2016 7:05:56 GMT Daedalus said:

Whatever happened, though, I think it's indicative of the Green Arrow screwing with her perception...somehow. Perhaps we'll learn that she sees everyone who trespasses as the killers of her lover*?

No, I think that it is Blue who is "screwing with her perception". In that interpretation two faces of Jeanne are: real Jeanne (white ghost) and imagined Jeanne - created and enforced by Blue.

Aug 26, 2016 7:49:12 GMT Rea said:

• Admittedly, Red didn't have to be there but she apparently insisted

Hm... so probably Red will save them

Aug 26, 2016 7:45:12 GMT Daedalus said:

I think their plan was Blue. The only other Chekhov's Gun left unfired is the Giggleblade.

Quick! Re-read whole comics to find and reveal Tom's plan before he will post on Monday!

Unless his plan is to kill everybody

You know what? I think to next page will be awful. There will be actual attack, it will look like somebody is going to die. And in next page Annie will manage to remove the arrow and everything (especially Jeanne) will disappear.