[1803] Messed up

[Daedalus]

Jeez, Red.

You're starting to sound uncomfortably like Tony.

Give it a rest. _{Despite the fact that you're right.}



Incidentally, considering how machiavellian and ruthless the Court has proven itself to be, I think it's a very good idea to not go to them unless it's a last resort. Plus, teleporting could have harmed him - you never move a stab victim unless you have to.

[turion]

"And for your wrongdoings, you shall be punished. Bend over."

[OGRuddawg]

I knew this would get brought up eventually, but dang. Red's been holding back on her opinion of Annie's conduct. While I do agree with some of her points, I think Red has gone a little too far with a few of her accusations. If they had gone to the Court, I can guarantee the two fairies would have been in just as much hot water as Annie. They might have even kicked them out of the hollow fairy program. They may have even separated Red and Ayilu in the process. The whole group is responsible for letting the Jeanne plan almost fall apart. Annie was the leader, but Red and Ayilu could have backed out or refused to go along with it at any time, and judging by the amount of planning that went in to it, the level of danger was apparent from the beginning. Red and Ayilu knew damn well that this was a risky move, tempting offer or not.

[turion]

Mar 10, 2017 8:00:33 GMT Daedalus said:

Plus, teleporting could have harmed him - you never move a stab victim unless you have to.

ParleyPrecisionTeleport® is designed to move our customers in such a gentle way as if they weren't moved at all! You won't feel an itch as the etheric waves take you away!

[youwiththeface]

Yeah, still can't get emotionally invested in this, sorry.

[stuffedsandal]

The thing that bothers me is, they didn't need Parley to fight Jeanne in the first place! They ONLY needed to get the arrow out of the water, and Jeanne cannot cross the water. They could teleport the whole team in a bigger boat and George could fight Jeanne only as a last resort, not from the beginning.

[bedinsis]

Mar 10, 2017 8:15:34 GMT stuffedsandal said:

Jeanne cannot cross the water.

Nonsense

[kingcritter]

Mar 10, 2017 8:15:34 GMT stuffedsandal said:

The thing that bothers me is, they didn't need Parley to fight Jeanne in the first place! They ONLY needed to get the arrow out of the water, and Jeanne cannot cross the water. They could teleport the whole team in a bigger boat and George could fight Jeanne only as a last resort, not from the beginning.

Ah, but she can, at least in some form. Mutt does say "be thankful she cannot cross the river" but then a few pages later Annie gets her cheek sliced open.

[OGRuddawg]

Mar 10, 2017 8:15:34 GMT stuffedsandal said:

The thing that bothers me is, they didn't need Parley to fight Jeanne in the first place! They ONLY needed to get the arrow out of the water, and Jeanne cannot cross the water. They could teleport the whole team in a bigger boat and George could fight Jeanne only as a last resort, not from the beginning.

I have to disagree with you on that point. For Parley to act as Jeanne's longtime friend, she needed to be near both Ayilu and Jeanne to take part in the illusion. Also, she had to protect the others if the illusion broke, which it did as soon as the arrow was disturbed. Also, Annie had first hand experience that Jeanne could cross to the other side under the right circumstances, otherwise in Chapter 7 Jeanne could not have cut Annie. I seriously doubt the group would have taken the risk of Jeanne seeing them on the other side and getting the first attack in. The plan was far from perfect, but Jeanne being tied to the arrow made her reaction to anyone messing with it unpredictable. Not having Parley prepare for a likely duel with Jeanne would have been a fatal mistake.

[snowflake]

I sort of agreed with Red on the question of manipulating Ayilu, but this? No.

Annie had to choose between
1) making Andrew wait literally another minute for a quick healing she knew was guaranteed if the price was right,
and
2) having Parley take him to a hospital, where a healing would be neither quick nor guaranteed, AND which would require precise teleportation from a distraught Parley and an incapacitated and down on his luck Andrew.

Even if the hospital trip would have gone perfectly, it would entail a lot more pain for Smitty than the Muut healing, +the trouble they ALL would be in - and Smitty, being older than Annie and court medium, would be in at least as much trouble as her.

[gpvos]

The shocking thing here is that Red actually understands human ethics so well.

[theonethatgotaway]

Tom's been reading the forum's too much, and is now just voicing our concerns of the last chapter through Red

[turion]

Mar 10, 2017 8:56:22 GMT theonethatgotaway said:

Tom's been reading the forum's too much, and is now just voicing our concerns of the last chapter through Red

Yes, I actually thought today that maybe he quickly drew a new chapter just to take up the discussions!

[philman]

Is Red just a human (fairy?) personification of the internet?

Her hair! It goes up! So cool! But also let me explain to you exactly what you did wrong and use every argument that the forum came up with to do so.

[noone3]

Mar 10, 2017 8:00:33 GMT Daedalus said:

Incidentally, considering how machiavellian and ruthless the Court has proven itself to be, I think it's a very good idea to not go to them unless it's a last resort. Plus, teleporting could have harmed him - you never move a stab victim unless you have to.

Considering that almost every work and service is done in the court by robots Kat would have no problem in establishing a clandestine ER in her warehouse.

Also, teleporting as depicted in the comic is actually the safest possible means to transport a stabbie.

Low points for style, Annie, deal with it.

Mar 10, 2017 9:37:29 GMT philman said:

Is Red just a human (fairy?) personification of the internet?

Her hair! It goes up! So cool! But also let me explain to you exactly what you did wrong and use every argument that the forum came up with to do so.

gosh golly! You're perfectly right! WE ARE RED!
Lets all do something fairy!

[zbeeblebrox]

The fairies, they were us all along!

[csj]

The truth is that's she's all f messed up

[casualobserver]

Red and I are starting to part ways. Jeanne had a problem and WAS a problem. The river became a wall. The kids fixed it the best way they knew how and they all bought in for their own motives. To start pointing fingers after the fact isn't cool. Sorry, Red, you and I have potentially irreconcileable differences and I'm starting not even to like you.

[Jelly Jellybean]

Now I am joining others who wondered if Red really has a problem with how Annie handled things, or is Red deflecting Annie's suggestion that Red reveal her feeling to Ayilu.  I am almost getting a Zimmy vibe.

[todd]

One other point: would regular medical help have been enough to save Andrew's life from an etherically-inflicted wound?

[Nepycros]

Regardless of how skillful Annie's been able to avoid consequences, this should be an opportunity for her to evaluate the risks she regularly takes. Discretion and good judgment are supposed to be the hallmarks of a medium, and while they were successful, the stakes were higher than they ever should have been.

[todd]

Mar 10, 2017 8:00:33 GMT Daedalus said:

Incidentally, considering how machiavellian and ruthless the Court has proven itself to be, I think it's a very good idea to not go to them unless it's a last resort.

In light of its entrapping Reynardine (with the irony that their scheme produced the very result they were trying to avoid - Rey accepting Coyote's gift) and manipulating, then abandoning, Anthony, I fear the Court leadership hasn't changed since the days of the Founders.

The only possible protection Annie and Co. might have had was that the Court would have to find a way of publishing them without revealing why. Would they want everyone else to know about what the Founders did to Jeanne and her boy-friend? Or about the troubles with Gilltie Wood that had partly motivated them to carry out the scheme? Unless, of course, the Court leadership simply made up a story to cover up the Founders' wrong-doing, followed by making Annie and her friends permanently disappear, removed from the school records (with the problem of needing new mediums for the Court and the Wood, of course - unless the Court administration decides to just forget about diplomacy, burn the forest to the ground, and slaughter or cage all its inhabitants - at least, once they can figure what to do about Coyote).

[ohthatone]

Annie: BUT I SOLD MY RUDDY SOUL
I'm reminded of the conversation with Ysengrin in which Annie had a reasonable argument but was unable to articulate it well.

So while both Annie and Red have good points, For some reason Annie keeps defaulting to little kid mode.

saying the difference was doctors possibly being able to heal Smitty vs the pomps who were definitely able to (for a price) makes for a much better argument than "but I would have gotten in troubllllllee!"

[darlos9d]

Mar 10, 2017 8:56:22 GMT theonethatgotaway said:

Tom's been reading the forum's too much, and is now just voicing our concerns of the last chapter through Red

Unfortunately, now I'm afraid of reverse problems: now that our concerns have been pretty explicitly brought up, Annie is just going to take it on the chin without giving any of the counter arguments we're thinking of. Such as "do you really think getting in trouble with the Court is no big deal" or "do you really think teleporting him in that state would have been safe" or "do you really think the doctors could have saved him" and so on.

Or, at the very least, having another character say those things when they hear Annie say what a crappy person she now thinks she is.

Ayilou hasn't said anything, but so far her expressions have been fairly contemplative. Maybe she'll say something.

[csj]

Eh, the oddest thing about this chapter isn't so much Red speaking out, as it is her being rather... mature in doing so. She isn't waving her hands around. She isn't jumping about. It's all eerily cold and stern for the former fairy that used to proudly proclaim when her hair was displayed in a vertical fashion.

She done learned things

[jda]

Mar 10, 2017 8:56:22 GMT theonethatgotaway said:

Tom's been reading the forum's too much, and is now just voicing our concerns of the last chapter through Red

My thoughts, exactly

Also:
Annie STATUS: Still a supreme fae exploiter.

[ctso74]

Right or wrong(or neither), Red is acting awfully mature and level-headed. I'm almost to the point of thinking this is a dream sequence, though that's doubtful.
Annie could point out Etheric wounds might not be hospital-friendly, or talk about the "sacrifice" that she agreed on with Muut, but she could respond to Red's sudden maturity with her own. It'd be nice, if she took the criticism on the chin. She could say, Red's not right but she's not wrong either, and own the responsibility.

Then again, this could all be an illusion by Coyote for craps and laughs. So...

[guitarminotaur]

Annie's responses are possibly more concerning than the validity of Red's points. If her response to Red's question had been something along the lines of "I didn't think non-magical help would work" or "He needed help right there, right now" then her behaviour would have been more understandable. The fact she goes straight for "so we didn't get found out", right after "You put us in danger in exchange for something that was worth nothing to you" doesn't speak well for Annie's character.

You can make all the right decisions for the wrong reasons.


There's an even more ominous side to this. Annie could've let Parley teleport them to safety, perhaps? Is this what this comic is trying to imply? Annie didn't deny the possibility. She went straight to the fact they would get caught. Annie just sold her soul to the guides, or whatever that deal meant physically, because she didn't want the court to find out.


Whether or not that was a good call, has Annie really put enough thought and consideration into it to justify it to herself and her friends?


To summarise, I'm thinking less about the quality of the decision itself and more what it says about the person who took it.

[Trillium]

Mar 10, 2017 13:07:16 GMT Nepycros said:

Regardless of how skillful Annie's been able to avoid consequences, this should be an opportunity for her to evaluate the risks she regularly takes. Discretion and good judgment are supposed to be the hallmarks of a medium, and while they were successful, the stakes were higher than they ever should have been.

Of our intrepid heros; Annie, Kat and Parley were the ones who knew best how dangerous the mission was. Everyone except perhaps the fairies KNEW this would be dangerous. They all had their reasons for going. This doesn't really excuse Annie but they could do research and practice for years and still not be ready.

Red is dressing down Annie for triggering Red's feelings for Alyilu. However Red doesn't want to deal with that nor is she ready to be honest with Alyilu so she is attacking Annie instead. All her arguments are just a distraction from the real issue for her. Yes Annie needs to accept the consequences of her actions. We haven't seen how Parley feels about Andrew almost dying or how Andrew feels. We don't know how Kat feels about the damage done to Robot or what they are going to do with that green arrow. There could be a lot of fallout or the others may accept responsibility for their decision to go on the mission knowing it would be dangerous. 

There are going to be consequences and we haven't even gotten to the biggest one; the guardian of the Annan Waters is gone. Whatever The Court set in motion when they sacrificed Jeanne and her lover, it is over. Someone in The Court is going to notice that soon. Coyote certainly knows something has changed. Annie and friends are going to have some explaining to do. 

[Trillium]

Opps.