[1995] This all happened because of something [I] did.

[imaginaryfriend]

Unless she gave birth to Coyote I don't think Antimony can claim credit for ALL of what happened.

Also type-o in last panel. Typos have been fixed.

[edit] Assumption my part that she's going to continue with the selfblame. I suppose she might be trying to say "Diego" or "Eglamore" or even "my Dad."[/edit]

[madjack]

Huh... Awkward conversation with Anthony and Jones instead.

Also another typo in the third, that apostrophe in "want's" isn't necessary?

[ih8pkmn]

Pretty sure this is the first time we've seen Jones in at least a few years.

E: I mean outside of Flashbacks.

[zaferion]

Jones looks weird here. She looks too compassionate or something

[Angry Individual]

Jun 1, 2018 7:09:45 GMT zaferion said:

Jones looks weird here. She looks too compassionate or something

Oh gods, she's getting better at mimicking...

What if she's... learned to smile properly?

[zaferion]

Jun 1, 2018 7:09:33 GMT ih8pkmn said:

Pretty sure this is the first time we've seen Jones in at least a few years.

E: I mean outside of Flashbacks.

Yeah, the last time she was on screen was in the background of Chapter 48, page 13 (she shows up again a few pages later as an even more insignificant white spot), and the last time we heard her actually speak was in Mort's childhood flashback in See Ya. The last time we heard Jones speak in the current era was the chapter before, Changes, when she briefly objected to Head Boss Man What's His Face naming Smitty the Court Medium. The last time we had any sort of meaningful interaction with Jones was The Stone when we learned who she is.

It makes sense that we've seen less of Jones since Parley, Eyebrows, and Annie are no longer under her tutelage, but I feel that the comic is worse for her absence. Tom's dry sense of humor comes across really well with Jones.

ETA: If my estimation is correct, the last time we saw Jones (not including unimportant background appearances) was on March 24, 2014.

[philman]

Jun 1, 2018 7:20:05 GMT zaferion said:

Jun 1, 2018 7:09:33 GMT ih8pkmn said:

Pretty sure this is the first time we've seen Jones in at least a few years.

E: I mean outside of Flashbacks.

Yeah, the last time she was on screen was in the background of Chapter 48, page 13 (she shows up again a few pages later as an even more insignificant white spot), and the last time we heard her actually speak was in Mort's childhood flashback in See Ya. The last time we heard Jones speak in the current era was the chapter before, Changes, when she briefly objected to Head Boss Man What's His Face naming Smitty the Court Medium. The last time we had any sort of meaningful interaction with Jones was The Stone when we learned who she is.

It makes sense that we've seen less of Jones since Parley, Eyebrows, and Annie are no longer under her tutelage, but I feel that the comic is worse for her absence. Tom's dry sense of humor comes across really well with Jones.

ETA: If my estimation is correct, the last time we saw Jones (not including unimportant background appearances) was on March 24, 2014.

Jeez. Really puts into context how long I've been reading this comic that I didn't even notice that as a long space of time.

[zaferion]

Jun 1, 2018 7:38:14 GMT philman said:

Jun 1, 2018 7:20:05 GMT zaferion said:

Yeah, the last time she was on screen was in the background of Chapter 48, page 13 (she shows up again a few pages later as an even more insignificant white spot), and the last time we heard her actually speak was in Mort's childhood flashback in See Ya. The last time we heard Jones speak in the current era was the chapter before, Changes, when she briefly objected to Head Boss Man What's His Face naming Smitty the Court Medium. The last time we had any sort of meaningful interaction with Jones was The Stone when we learned who she is.

It makes sense that we've seen less of Jones since Parley, Eyebrows, and Annie are no longer under her tutelage, but I feel that the comic is worse for her absence. Tom's dry sense of humor comes across really well with Jones.

ETA: If my estimation is correct, the last time we saw Jones (not including unimportant background appearances) was on March 24, 2014.

Jeez. Really puts into context how long I've been reading this comic that I didn't even notice that as a long space of time.

Right? Me either. I started reading the comic in February or March of 2012 (I don't remember when exactly, I just know I caught up about halfway through Microsat 5) so it's weird to think that, since I began reading, I've spent more time without Jones than with her cuz she feels like such a staple of the comic.

[ih8pkmn]

Jun 1, 2018 7:38:14 GMT philman said:

Jun 1, 2018 7:20:05 GMT zaferion said:

Yeah, the last time she was on screen was in the background of Chapter 48, page 13 (she shows up again a few pages later as an even more insignificant white spot), and the last time we heard her actually speak was in Mort's childhood flashback in See Ya. The last time we heard Jones speak in the current era was the chapter before, Changes, when she briefly objected to Head Boss Man What's His Face naming Smitty the Court Medium. The last time we had any sort of meaningful interaction with Jones was The Stone when we learned who she is.

It makes sense that we've seen less of Jones since Parley, Eyebrows, and Annie are no longer under her tutelage, but I feel that the comic is worse for her absence. Tom's dry sense of humor comes across really well with Jones.

ETA: If my estimation is correct, the last time we saw Jones (not including unimportant background appearances) was on March 24, 2014.

Jeez. Really puts into context how long I've been reading this comic that I didn't even notice that as a long space of time.

Four years, geez.

I've also noted a distinct lack of Zimmy, Gamma and Jack-- Zimmy we saw in a flashback punching out Tony. The last time we saw any of them was in The Torn Sea, which was, by my estimation, January 21st, 2015.

[Jelly Jellybean]

Jun 1, 2018 7:18:13 GMT Angry Individual said:

Jun 1, 2018 7:09:45 GMT zaferion said:

Jones looks weird here. She looks too compassionate or something

Oh gods, she's getting better at mimicking...

What if she's... learned to smile properly?

Jones mimicked Annie's big eyes.

Annie subconsciously responded to the challenge.

[aline]

Jun 1, 2018 7:03:19 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

Unless she gave birth to Coyote I don't think Antimony can claim credit for ALL of what happened.

Annie is explaining that she gave Coyote and Ysengrin the opportunity for mischief, which is true. The fact that Coyote and Ysengrin are the primary culprits is obvious enough to all people involved. If Annie pointed it out, she would sound extremely defensive. She made a breach in the Court's defenses. She obviously didn't think it would matter, but it did, now she needs to solve that issue with the help of the others.

Annie is not telling this so that she will be blamed and punished. She's also not running away, hiding, or doing something reckless on her own. Instead she's gathering help and looking for solutions. The people around her need to understand why the Annan Waters were once a barrier and why they can now be crossed, it's critical information. Annie is doing what she does best: making people work together who would not otherwise find each other, and leading them towards a solution they wouldn't have imagined on their own. Telling the circumstances of what happened and her role in it is just a part of finding that solution. 

This is called taking responsibility, the opposite of self-flagellation, and it's a proof that Annie has grown as a person.

I think Annie's qualities will truly shine in this crisis with the Forest and I'm very much looking forward to it.

[philman]

Jun 1, 2018 7:45:52 GMT zaferion said:

Jun 1, 2018 7:38:14 GMT philman said:

Jeez. Really puts into context how long I've been reading this comic that I didn't even notice that as a long space of time.

Right? Me either. I started reading the comic in February or March of 2012 (I don't remember when exactly, I just know I caught up about halfway through Microsat 5) so it's weird to think that, since I began reading, I've spent more time without Jones than with her cuz she feels like such a staple of the comic.

I think I started sometime around A Week For Kat, or perhaps the chapter afterwards, but I don't remember what year that was. Not even sure where I first heard about the comic from, but the only other webcomic I read at the time was Questionable Content, so must have been in a discussion about that or something. Time flies! Even if waiting for the next page always feels like an age...

[philman]

Jun 1, 2018 11:49:02 GMT aline said:

Jun 1, 2018 7:03:19 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

Unless she gave birth to Coyote I don't think Antimony can claim credit for ALL of what happened.

Annie is explaining that she gave Coyote and Ysengrin the opportunity for mischief, which is true. The fact that Coyote and Ysengrin are the primary culprits is obvious enough to all people involved. If Annie pointed it out, she would sound extremely defensive. She made a breach in the Court's defenses. She obviously didn't think it would matter, but it did, now she needs to solve that issue with the help of the others.

Annie is not telling this so that she will be blamed and punished. She's also not running away, hiding, or doing something reckless on her own. Instead she's gathering help and looking for solutions. The people around her need to understand why the Annan Waters were once a barrier and why they can now be crossed, it's critical information. Annie is doing what she does best: making people work together who would not otherwise find each other, and leading them towards a solution they wouldn't have imagined on their own. Telling the circumstances of what happened and her role in it is just a part of finding that solution. 

This is called taking responsibility, the opposite of self-flagellation, and it's a proof that Annie has grown as a person.

I think Annie's qualities will truly shine in this crisis with the Forest and I'm very much looking forward to it.

This is actually one of the best breakdowns of why Annie is feeling guilty, and accepting that she is partially responsible without blaming her for everything, so far.

[theonethatgotaway]

She's got those Annie-me eyes in the last panel. Kawaiiii

[todd]

Jun 1, 2018 11:49:02 GMT aline said:

Annie is not telling this so that she will be blamed and punished. She's also not running away, hiding, or doing something reckless on her own. Instead she's gathering help and looking for solutions. The people around her need to understand why the Annan Waters were once a barrier and why they can now be crossed, it's critical information. Annie is doing what she does best: making people work together who would not otherwise find each other, and leading them towards a solution they wouldn't have imagined on their own. Telling the circumstances of what happened and her role in it is just a part of finding that solution. 

This is called taking responsibility, the opposite of self-flagellation, and it's a proof that Annie has grown as a person.

I think Annie's qualities will truly shine in this crisis with the Forest and I'm very much looking forward to it.

I wonder how much blame and punishment Annie will be likely to receive. While her actions had led to the defenses of the Annan Waters being removed, those defenses were based on an immoral act that she was setting right. Any wise judge (and Jones definitely qualifies) will take that into account. (And fortunately, Annie's telling Jones and Antony, both of whom have displayed much independence from the Court, about this. Jones isn't even beholden to the Court, though she's residing there, and while Antony was initially - upon his return to the Court - acting on its instructions thanks to his vulnerable emotional state, he's come to move increasingly away from it. I think we can safely assume that neither of them will automatically report this to the Headmaster and his fellows.)

As I've mentioned before, the challenge with punishing Annie is that, unless you navigate your way with much care, you could wind up supporting - or appearing to support - the Founders' original deed, suggesting that they were right to do what they did to Jeanne and that she should have been kept down there, festering in hate and torment, for the rest of time. (While I suspect that the Court administration is coldly amoral enough to give no concern to the fact that the barrier was founded on such a rotten base, I doubt it could afford to publicly approve of that policy; most of the teachers and students have displayed far more of a sense of right and wrong.) Annie's mainly guilty of not planning far enough ahead for what would happen once that defense was removed (understandable, given both the focus in the documentation she'd received of Diego's motives over those of Sir Young and the rest, and the signs that the old feud was dying down) - and note, too, that Kat and Parley never brought that up either. (Andrew did raise once, briefly, the question of why they were doing this, but didn't say anything more than that Jeanne had been down there a long while, and withdrew his concerns upon Annie's reply.)

But I'm certainly looking forward to seeing the consequences of Annie's confession.

[ctso74]

Carver, shouldn't you talk this over with your fellow conspirators first, before spilling the beans? How's the Court going to handle, their Protector In Training doing battle with a unknown but primary defense system, under their noses?

Didn't someone think the white figure, on the chapter's title page, might be Jones instead of Annie? Let's hope their were right, and Jones plays a big part in the chapter.

[Trillium]

Solve the ongoing emergency first. There will be plenty of blame to go around afterwards. Annie's default setting, " It's all my fault," is pretty normal for someone of Annie's background. Her parents didn't bother to explain a bunch of things to her. Annie has thought a lot of things were her fault when it was really the adults around her. Hopefully Jones and Eglamore can help her focus on the important issues.

[jda]

Well, the ether distortion warps reality and physical realm, too.

[ohthatone]

Whatever Annie's confession is, I hope she gets chewed out by Jones (again) for not coming to her.

[madjack]

Jun 1, 2018 13:31:59 GMT ctso74 said:

Didn't someone think the white figure, on the chapter's title page, might be Jones instead of Annie? Let's hope their were right, and Jones plays a big part in the chapter.

Yeah, I did in the chapter page thread, only to change my mind a bit later. Which seems to have been a mistake, cos she's wearing that white outfit both now and in the previous chapter.

[youwiththeface]

Jun 1, 2018 11:49:02 GMT aline said:

Jun 1, 2018 7:03:19 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

Unless she gave birth to Coyote I don't think Antimony can claim credit for ALL of what happened.

Annie is explaining that she gave Coyote and Ysengrin the opportunity for mischief, which is true. The fact that Coyote and Ysengrin are the primary culprits is obvious enough to all people involved. If Annie pointed it out, she would sound extremely defensive. She made a breach in the Court's defenses. She obviously didn't think it would matter, but it did, now she needs to solve that issue with the help of the others.

This is debatable. The Coyote/Ysengrin thing certainly didn't travel across the waters where Jeanne would've been. They just flat out destroyed the bridge and flew into the Court over its remains. I think it's still not clear how guilty Annie actually is for this, or for that matter how guilty the others are either. However, I think it does show growth that she appears to be asking for help from an adult, which is something she generally doesn't do. 

[blazingstar]

Jun 1, 2018 13:31:59 GMT ctso74 said:

Carver, shouldn't you talk this over with your fellow conspirators first, before spilling the beans? How's the Court going to handle, their Protector In Training doing battle with a unknown but primary defense system, under their noses?

If they weren't prepared to handle the consequences, they never should have conspired with her to begin with. Besides, her co-conspirators are kind of a bad influence. Jones was right, and Red was right: Annie became overconfident, and once again neglected to ask Jones for help like she was supposed to, or come up with a backup plan in case something went wrong.

[blazingstar]

Jun 1, 2018 15:32:35 GMT ohthatone said:

Whatever Annie's confession is, I hope she gets chewed out by Jones (again) for not coming to her.

I hope so, too. 

You had one job, Carver. One job. 

[faiiry]

Jones is gonna be like, "We know." I bet you that the Court was always aware of what Annie had done and didn't intervene for some reason or another. Unless Annie and the rest deliberately starved themselves, the Court can and does track its citizens through their food, and so, a bunch of students going to the river unsupervised would likely have caught the attention of whoever monitors such matters. At the very least, I don't doubt that Jones knew about it. She knows everything.

Also, as many have said above: "Something *I* did," Annie? Parley and Smitty have got to be shuffling their feet and looking in opposite directions right now. I don't remember either of them having too many objections over what went down.

[faiiry]

Jun 1, 2018 7:09:45 GMT zaferion said:

Jones looks weird here. She looks too compassionate or something

That was my first thought when I saw her. I thought her eyes were too big.

Compare her appearance on this page with her appearance several years ago (in real-life time - it really does fly):




I think we need to stage an intervention to get Jones off that eye-enhancement surgery addiction. Unrealistic expectations for women these days, I tell you.

[imaginaryfriend]

Jun 1, 2018 13:20:42 GMT todd said:

Jun 1, 2018 11:49:02 GMT aline said:

Annie is not telling this so that she will be blamed and punished. She's also not running away, hiding, or doing something reckless on her own. Instead she's gathering help and looking for solutions... This is called taking responsibility, the opposite of self-flagellation, and it's a proof that Annie has grown as a person.

I think Annie's qualities will truly shine in this crisis with the Forest and I'm very much looking forward to it.

I wonder how much blame and punishment Annie will be likely to receive... I think we can safely assume that neither of them will automatically report this to the Headmaster and his fellows.)

As I've mentioned before, the challenge with punishing Annie is that, unless you navigate your way with much care, you could wind up supporting - or appearing to support - the Founders' original deed, suggesting that they were right to do what they did to Jeanne and that she should have been kept down there, festering in hate and torment, for the rest of time. (While I suspect that the Court administration is coldly amoral enough to give no concern to the fact that the barrier was founded on such a rotten base, I doubt it could afford to publicly approve of that policy; most of the teachers and students have displayed far more of a sense of right and wrong.) Annie's mainly guilty of not planning far enough ahead for what would happen once that defense was removed (understandable, given both the focus in the documentation she'd received of Diego's motives over those of Sir Young and the rest, and the signs that the old feud was dying down) - and note, too, that Kat and Parley never brought that up either. (Andrew did raise once, briefly, the question of why they were doing this, but didn't say anything more than that Jeanne had been down there a long while, and withdrew his concerns upon Annie's reply.)

But I'm certainly looking forward to seeing the consequences of Annie's confession.

The crisis is still on and the evacuation has everything jumbled. In the short term I don't think there will be any consequences for Antimony beyond what we've seen with maybe one possible exception. One might think that as a dad Anthony's first concern would be to get Antimony away from the danger but instead he's in favor of her going to the Wood and it was his idea (not Antimony's) for her to have help in doing so. It may be that Antimony has been excluded from evacuation for security reasons like she's been cut out of official Court business. Anthony may feel that sending her to the Wood will make her safe even if she doesn't accomplish anything because she'll be out of the line of fire there... and even if she doesn't do any good there just going will help her in the long run.

What happens after the crisis passes will depend on how bad things are overall and what Antimony did during it. The general population doesn't have much experience with ghosts, has never heard of Diego, and will probably not have too much sympathy for Jeanne in the light of their own casualties and displacement. Even so, hanging the entire blame on a teenage girl probably won't work either, particularly so if she goes to the Wood at this time for the sake of trying to resolve things and with the implicit support of the Court. So unless there's a major botch Antimony will probably come out of this looking good in general. Even though the Court officialdom may not like what she's done having "support" from the Court as she goes to the Wood will probably limit what they can effectively do to her.

And of course if she comes out a hero by resolving the situation then there probably won't be any bad consequences at all.

[todd]

Jun 1, 2018 23:47:03 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

The general population doesn't have much experience with ghosts, has never heard of Diego, and will probably not have too much sympathy for Jeanne in the light of their own casualties and displacement.

I hope the general population is better than that - maybe what the Founders had done to Jeanne provided a defense against the Court, but it was still murder, torture, and a form of slavery. It'd be a dark comment indeed on the inhabitants of the Court if their response, even given what they'd just gone through, was "We'd stick her back down there again and make her suffer all over again, just to keep ourselves safe!"

[Runningflame]

Jun 2, 2018 0:20:52 GMT todd said:

Jun 1, 2018 23:47:03 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

The general population doesn't have much experience with ghosts, has never heard of Diego, and will probably not have too much sympathy for Jeanne in the light of their own casualties and displacement.

I hope the general population is better than that - maybe what the Founders had done to Jeanne provided a defense against the Court, but it was still murder, torture, and a form of slavery. It'd be a dark comment indeed on the inhabitants of the Court if their response, even given what they'd just gone through, was "We'd stick her back down there again and make her suffer all over again, just to keep ourselves safe!"

Hm. Perhaps they would say, "She's not a woman, she's just a ghost..."

SPOILER: Click to show

Okay that's probably not quite how Annie meant it--less a denial of Mort's personhood, more a denial of the possibility of any romance between them. And, of course, she exaggerated her statement in the heat of anger. But still, if Annie of all people can say something like that (and somewhat mean it), others could say the same sort of thing and totally mean it. It wouldn't be hard to justify the conclusion that ghosts are less important than flesh-and-blood humans. After all, they're dead!

[ffkonoko]

It's cool that people are continuing to go "no, there are other potential people that could have broken this chain of events, this totally absolves you from considering the series of actions you planned and executed your fault, or that you didn't tell the adults you were removing the thing enforcing the peace between two areas that require mediation and have a bad diplomatic history". Seriously, Annie taking responsibility for her part in things is a normal, human and reasonable thing. Yes, other people could also have hypothetically acted differently to stop it, but she still has ownership over her OWN actions and how they caused this, and feeling guilty and empathetic over that when seeing all this upheaval is healthy.

Meanwhile, I'm just thinking it's about damn time she told Jones. Good to see you Jones.

[youwiththeface]

Jun 2, 2018 6:39:41 GMT ffkonoko said:

It's cool that people are continuing to go "no, there are other potential people that could have broken this chain of events, this totally absolves you from considering the series of actions you planned and executed your fault, or that you didn't tell the adults you were removing the thing enforcing the peace between two areas that require mediation and have a bad diplomatic history". Seriously, Annie taking responsibility for her part in things is a normal, human and reasonable thing. Yes, other people could also have hypothetically acted differently to stop it, but she still has ownership over her OWN actions and how they caused this, and feeling guilty and empathetic over that when seeing all this upheaval is healthy.

Meanwhile, I'm just thinking it's about damn time she told Jones. Good to see you Jones.

There are a couple problems here. One, Annie is taking all the blame, which is dumb for multiple reasons. Two, we don't know that what Annie did led to this being allowed to happen. Three, I'd say at least some of the blame for this lies in Coyote, depending on how things shake out. Four, I'm extremely uncomfortable with the idea that leaving Jeanne and her lover where they were was the correct course of action because ew.