[2120] "Excuses, excuses!"

[ebaaus]

That's not fair!

A real daylight savings drama I say.

[Igniz]

Using Surma's memento in such a way was a really low blow on Courtnie's part. Still, going by that "I-I didn't..." from Fannie, Courtnie's "Excuses, excuses" might've hit the nail on the head... And, by extension, those very same excuses are Courtnie's too - well, at least they were until half a year ago.

[Angry Individual]

I wonder if it's an excuse. Either way, Courtnie is going for low blows.

[rafk]

If the upside of the externalised internal monologue was perfect harmony on the question of Paz, here we see the downside - the internal voice also knows all the vulnerable spots.

It's much like watching the Me squared episode of Red Dwarf.

[ih8pkmn]

Just when I was actually starting to kind of like her. This is so petty that I wouldn't be surprised if Courtnie was just Tony wearing a mask.

[gpvos]

New wildspec: it's the necklace that makes Tony unable to talk with the Annie that wears it.

[bicarbonat]

Me, as Fannie: ...I hope you have a goddamn baby so I can punt you into the sweet hereafter.

[madjack]

Mar 11, 2019 7:54:48 GMT gpvos said:

New wildspec: it's the necklace that makes Tony unable to talk with the Annie that wears it.

Oooh, that's a thought. Perhaps it's in tandem with the makeup as well, the more she reminds him of Surma, the less he can deal with it, the more he clams up. A constant reminder that he failed to help her.

If this turns out to be true I wonder if he'd be unable to open up to Rey as well, since Surma made the body he inhabits.

Edit: Also a constant reminder that he might fail to help Annie as well.

Edit Edit: Although Annie herself would probably be the biggest reminder of all. Hmm.

[turion]

Sylvannie lost her necklace? When? How? Maybe this necklace can't be duplicated?

[keef]

First time she cries since chapter six.

None of this behaviour is untypical for Annie, but court Annie is now reaching the limit.

Mar 11, 2019 8:15:18 GMT turion said:

Sylvannie lost her necklace? When? How? Maybe this necklace can't be duplicated?

She wasn't wearing it to the forest, so Loup didn't duplicate it, I guess.

[Timberwere]

Mar 11, 2019 8:15:18 GMT turion said:

Sylvannie lost her necklace? When? How? Maybe this necklace can't be duplicated?

No, she didn't lose it. Unified!Annie left it in her room before she went into the forest so as not lose it on her mission. Courtney came back immediately and put it back on; Sylvannie came back six months later to find it around Courtney's neck.

The hair clip, by contrast, was duplicated because Sylvannie wore it during her meeting with Loup.

Re/ Tony not being able to talk: I'd thought it was the makeup that made Annie look too much like Surma, but the necklace (or the combination of makeup and necklace) sounds really convincing!

[dramastix]

....I'm sorry, Courtnie, but you also failed to wear it into the forest, and that's why it's not duplicated. So get off your high horse.

But then I suppose Frannie is already too upset for that retort.

[shadow3]

Am I the only one starting to get a Cain & Abel vibe here?

Two went in, one came out...

[fjodorii]

Panel three kind of suggests that Courtnie knew that Sylvie went to the Forest alone, and before her. Otherwise she would have said "I", or "We" didn't wear it to the Forest. It rekindles my belief that Courtnie is a Forest being with a strong glamour built around her. Maybe a powerful Elf like Ayilu.

[ruthie]

We're finally getting to see just how much Annie beats herself up.

She has no system to self-soothe, just like her father.

Court!Annie is the critical parent. Nothing either Annie does will ever be good enough. She believes she has to be harsh on herself to be worth anything.

Forest!Annie is more of a vulnerable child. She's being open and free with her feelings, possibly allowing Anthony to connect more with someone less like him. She's a side that the critical part of Annie works tirelessly to suppress.

I believe conversations like these have been happening in Annie's head her whole life. Add a time and experience difference, and suddenly it's a lot more intense. Like an actual other person who hates you with the intensity you already hate yourself.

Though I think now at least other people have an opportunity to witness this. And help.

That's my psychological reading

[imaginaryfriend]

Two things I took from today's comic:

1. I think Courtnie is fully aware of why Fannie left the necklace behind when Antimony went to the forest and brushes off that valid reason by labeling it an excuse, which is not a rational argument but an emotional appeal. Like dramastix said, Antimony didn't wear the necklace into the forest so neither did Courtnie. But Courtnie knows how upset she'd be if she lost the necklace that her mother gave her so she is getting it wrong on purpose to win the argument.* Not only does she use Surma's memory to hurt Fannie's feelings but she's adding theatrics like showing her the necklace while looking down on Fannie from up the stairs to add impact.

2. Courtnie either thinks doing things like this is standing up for herself (see panel 1 and 2) or is aware that it isn't and is using that to obscure what she's really doing.** She is a teen so it may take a while to determine which is actually the case.




*This argument, one sided though it may be, was unintentionally started by Fannie on the previous page in panel 1 when she said something that could be construed to mean that Anthony liked her more than Courtnie.

**If Courtnie is willfully ignorant about how she's hurting people's feelings to get her way with things I would argue that on some level she knows what she's doing.

[iver]

Psychologist around the world would have a field day with these two!
That being said, this reads in two ways:

On the one hand you could make the case that Courtnie is the impostor given that she keeps accusing Frannie of the things Annie was doing before she entered the forest... "You wanted to wear makeup...", "I [as your replacement] put my foot down", "You even stopped wearing...", and so on. But this would be too obvious and ... not all that interesting to the whole plot - or even this arc of the story. I mean, the fake giving itself away by wrong use of pronouns... Meh.

On the other hand - this is absolutely what would happen if you met your future or past self and you happened to be a deeply insecure person with a tendency to turn your anger inwards. When you're whole you can only think to yourself Oh what a fool, what an idiot I am, Why didn't I... Why did I... and so forth. But if there were two of you and  you could finally externalise all the pent-up frustrations with yourself... It's very tempting.
So now we have Annie split in two asymmetrical halves (personality wise) and we get to see who she is (or believes she is) in regards to others and in regards to herself. Plot wise, story wise - interesting!

What is also interesting is that the Annies have different defense mechanisms - Courtnie is confrontational and turns the blame on the other person as soon as she feels vulnerable, while Frannie is more soft and ... panicky? Anxious? Guilty? Sorry?
This is completely within the scope of one's personality and I can't wait to see how it all plays out.

In that vein - I also wonder if these two are perfect clones of one another (and it is just the matter of external influence that has made their general reactions different) or did dear old Loup make an imperfect split and now we have Annie split into her two extremes (in terms of extremes that every person has a as border to their own personality rather than literal objective extremes).

[iver]

Oh! Also! 

On this page you can see a nice side by side of Courtnie and Frannie while they were still Annie! (panels 5 and 6)

[theonethatgotaway]

"You don't want to get me angry!! Or crying, you won't like me when I'm crying!!!"

[saardvark]

Mar 11, 2019 9:43:52 GMT ruthie said:

We're finally getting to see just how much Annie beats herself up.

She has no system to self-soothe, just like her father.

Court!Annie is the critical parent. Nothing either Annie does will ever be good enough. She believes she has to be harsh on herself to be worth anything.

Forest!Annie is more of a vulnerable child. She's being open and free with her feelings, possibly allowing Anthony to connect more with someone less like him. She's a side that the critical part of Annie works tirelessly to suppress.

I believe conversations like these have been happening in Annie's head her whole life. Add a time and experience difference, and suddenly it's a lot more intense. Like an actual other person who hates you with the intensity you already hate yourself.

Though I think now at least other people have an opportunity to witness this. And help.

That's my psychological reading

well, read Ruthie; welcome to the forum!

[csj]

coyote knows how to push tony's buttons with the memories of surma

just sayin

[Polyhymnia]

Mar 11, 2019 8:44:08 GMT keef said:

First time she cries since chapter six. None of this behaviour is untypical for Annie, but court Annie is now reaching the limit.

Mar 11, 2019 8:15:18 GMT turion said:

Sylvannie lost her necklace? When? How? Maybe this necklace can't be duplicated?

She wasn't wearing it to the forest, so Loup didn't duplicate it, I guess.

I think you mean chapter 6 was the first time we saw her cry? You linked to chapter 31. There was a great example of Annie losing her emotions in an argument! But we’ve actually seen her cry quite recently, in Annie and the Fire. Another relevant example in Microsat 5 . Both times are in relation to unexpected interactions with her father, and both occur when he withholds his love (or at least that seems to be how she feels, regardless of whether or not he’s trying to withhold love). It seems the easiest way to hurt Annie is by poking at her insecurities, which are currently

1)Killed her mother—those one has morphed into the form we see now, which accepts that she couldn’t do anything to save her mother but still holds on to the latent guilt that it’s her fault and mandates she show adequate respect and memory for the dead.

2) Not worthy of her father’s attention/ incompetent (we mainly see them in a skills based relationship, like when he’s teaching her martial arts, or reprimands her for cheating. He seems to bring out her fear of failure/not measuring up.

3) Fear of being alone (she doesn’t cry here, but it’s still a vulnerability). This is associated with Kat and also linked with being inadequate. (She’s worried she will DO something to push Kat away).

(4) Not an insecurity, but Annie does cry out of just garden-variety mourning.


ETA: I also just found this instance of Annie not crying because of emotional duress, but what appears to be happiness: 

www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=308

[ohthatone]

Forest!Annie was so ashamed she put on her make up between panels 3 and 4 but by panel 5 it was off again :\

[ctso74]

I really hope this is all happening, because I really like the implication, that we're seeing her usually internal thoughts/feelings externalized.
However, the blue water is still clinging to the walls. What if this is the attack of the Ashray? What if Courtnie is getting her own version of all this, and they're both being held underneath the fallen floor.
Still like the idea of both their normal internal angst being played out, though.

[coastal]

Mar 11, 2019 10:33:40 GMT iver said:

...this is absolutely what would happen if you met your future or past self and you happened to be a deeply insecure person with a tendency to turn your anger inwards. When you're whole you can only think to yourself Oh what a fool, what an idiot I am, Why didn't I... Why did I... and so forth. But if there were two of you and  you could finally externalise all the pent-up frustrations with yourself... It's very tempting.
So now we have Annie split in two asymmetrical halves (personality wise) and we get to see who she is (or believes she is) in regards to others and in regards to herself. Plot wise, story wise - interesting!

Completely agree with this. I believe Court!Annie now sees Forest!Annie simply as her past self.

[ohthatone]

Mar 11, 2019 10:33:40 GMT iver said:

Pretty much this. I really think Pft!Annie isn't really angry at Forest!Annie as such, she's just yelling at herself now that she has the opportunity.  And Annie once again demonstrates her inability to voice her perfectly reasonable counter arguments.

Oh dear, will they start fighting over the necklace? with fire that melt the necklace? I guess that would solve that problem.

[The Anarch]

[Corvo]

Mar 11, 2019 9:05:15 GMT shadow3 said:

Am I the only one starting to get a Cain & Abel vibe here?

Two went in, one came out...

As opposed to walking through the woods, where one went in and two came out.

_{...Or "two went in and three came out", in the case of that poor, poor wolf and that terrible red-headed girl. And Mighty Eyebrows was there too, of course.}

[bicarbonat]

Mar 11, 2019 13:52:53 GMT ohthatone said:

Mar 11, 2019 10:33:40 GMT iver said:

Pretty much this. I really think Pft!Annie isn't really angry at Forest!Annie as such, she's just yelling at herself now that she has the opportunity.  And Annie once again demonstrates her inability to voice her perfectly reasonable counter arguments.

Oh dear, will they start fighting over the necklace? with fire that melt the necklace? I guess that would solve that problem.

Time for the ol' "Solomon special"! *whips out circular saw*

[lonestarf1]

Mar 11, 2019 14:34:50 GMT The Anarch said:

Well, would ya look at that. I didn't even notice.