[2290] Down that road

[bedinsis]

A new chapter starts this Monday

Had I not known Kat's mental state from Paz in the second to last chapter, this would look like a fun-times chapter. As it is now, I wonder if Kat is going to do something less than savory.

[madjack]

Yeah that is uh, not a healthy look from Kat in the chapter image.

Edit: Hmm, no entry for this chapter in the contents or a chapter icon yet.

Edit again: Maybe that's the wrong read, someone on reddit suggested flashback chapter given the art style.

Haircuts are obscured by the image borders so we can't tell if we're looking at long or short haired Annie, Kat could have had a haircut but it also matches a much much younger Kat, right back to the Aly era.

[wies]

Down that road of old.

[arkadi]

So, retrospective chapter? The art style looks like a callback to early episodes.

If that's the case, I hope we get some more insight into what's been going on inside Kat's noggin. That girl's got me worried.

[migrantworker]

So Kat looks dominant enough to make Annie quite uncomfortable. And also to physically impose herself and drag her along towards whatever it is that she wants to do. As if she thought Annie would benefit from, or at least enjoy, whatever she has in mind if only you break through her resistance somehow. Almost like early Parley and Smitty, minus the romantic overtones. Are we seeing the balance of power shifting, or do I just read too much into a snapshot with no context?

[arkadi]

Apr 10, 2020 9:33:00 GMT migrantworker said:

So Kat looks dominant enough to make Annie quite uncomfortable. And also to physically impose herself and drag her along towards whatever it is that she wants to do. As if she thought Annie would benefit from, or at least enjoy, whatever she has in mind if only you break through her resistance somehow. Almost like early Parley and Smitty, minus the romantic overtones. Are we seeing the balance of power shifting, or do I just read too much into a snapshot with no context?

Yeah: I think we're just seeing a callback to early episodes, when Kat was less stressed and more cheerful, and Annie was still shy and guarded around everyone. No need to read more into it.

[Jelly Jellybean]

Annie does not see the appeal of photo booths, but it makes Kat happy.

[madjack]

Obligatory pre-chapter wildspec: This is the Kat/Paz breakup.

We're going to get a series of flashbacks that will basically be Kat outlining to Paz why her friendship with and loyalty to Annie will win out over their relationship if she's forced to choose.
Kat will call out Paz' jealousy and point out that she and Annie have had plenty of opportunity to go down the 'romantic couple' road but that was never what either of them wanted.

[aquamafia]

I'm pretty sure it's younger Kat and Annie.
Annie's hair isn't as defined and their faces are wider and rounder like the old art.

I wonder if the comic is heading into its endgame? It seems like the Court will be going through with their plans soon, which in Coyote's words was to "become god." Probably the Court harnessing Ether and its power to reshape reality?

[todd]

I still think it's more likely that the Court doesn't want to actually *use* the ether to do anything; it just wants to study and experiment on it enough to be able to scientifically explain it, and doesn't realize the side-effects of its experiments.

[pyradonis]

Flashback was my first thought as well.

[saardvark]

I wonder if this "flashback" might actually also be wrapped up in Kat's attempts to repair timelines.... i.e., time travel, not just flashback!

[Gemini Jim]

Kat's "way too happy" look, Annie's reaction to said look and the fact that the title is "Down That Road" reminds me of a certain movie.

I agree that this is looking like a flashback of some sort.  Just look at how they are dressed, the art, Annie's makeup.

[atteSmythe]

Apr 10, 2020 13:07:34 GMT saardvark said:

I wonder if this "flashback" might actually also be wrapped up in Kat's attempts to repair timelines.... i.e., time travel, not just flashback!

I find myself wondering if this could be a chapter from ‘our’ Antimony’s point of view.

[csj]

chapters 1-10 from Kat's perspective could be interesting

some music for this chapter

[Eversist]

Like a lot of you, I got flashback/photo vibes. We don't see them in their school uniforms much anymore, and I don't think Tom's drawn Annie with the super-distinct eye lines in the iris for some time, or colored the eyeshadow to the eyebrows.

Excited for a new chapter (and the upcoming Coyote retrospective).

[zweihander]

Please remind me (and us, too!) again which chapter that has Kat's flashback of her first meeting Annie?

[avurai]

Tom hasn’t drawn Annie’s head that shape in a decade, this is definitely a flashback image. It’s interesting to see his more refined interpretation of his early art style. His drawings of younger Annie in flashback some chapters ago were less faithful to the early shape-language, where this is far more so. It seems he’s started taking the acceptance approach instead of the pave-over approach. Bold move. I don’t mind it. The old designs still definitely have some character to them.

[zweihander]

Apr 11, 2020 0:29:04 GMT zweihander said:

Please remind me (and us, too!) again which chapter that has Kat's flashback of her first meeting Annie?

After so many pages and jumping chapter and back to different chapter--- it's in Chapter 18: S1. 

[mturtle7]

Apr 11, 2020 0:59:24 GMT zweihander said:

Apr 11, 2020 0:29:04 GMT zweihander said:

Please remind me (and us, too!) again which chapter that has Kat's flashback of her first meeting Annie?

After so many pages and jumping chapter and back to different chapter--- it's in Chapter 18: S1. 

Agh! I was thinking about that too...you ninja'd me! How dare you, sir!

BUT. You didn't post a link to the specific page! So I can still technically be the first to put that here.

On another note, I was honestly surprised to find all the doubt here that the chapter cover is referencing Tom's old art with a younger Kat & Annie. I saw that picture and immediately thought, "oh hey it's the old art style! Guess we're getting some flashbacks this chapter." Alternatively, it's possible the whole chapter is just one big blast from the past, like Ties was.

I'm sure somebody out there is capable of pinning down exactly what year in the girls' lives this is from, based on the haircuts & such, but yeah that person is not me. They look pretty young, so maybe all the way back to year 7? I dunno.

[wies]

I like that there is so much uncertainty whether this is a flashback chapter or not. Perhaps Tom will honor us again with a snarky comment the likes of which the one beneath the page mturtle posted? ;-)

[dramastix]

Apr 11, 2020 4:29:28 GMT mturtle7 said:

On another note, I was honestly surprised to find all the doubt here that the chapter cover is referencing Tom's old art with a younger Kat & Annie. I saw that picture and immediately thought, "oh hey it's the old art style! Guess we're getting some flashbacks this chapter." Alternatively, it's possible the whole chapter is just one big blast from the past, like Ties was.

I'm sure somebody out there is capable of pinning down exactly what year in the girls' lives this is from, based on the haircuts & such, but yeah that person is not me. They look pretty young, so maybe all the way back to year 7? I dunno.

I'm going with yes - Tom stopped painting the eye shadow all the way up to her eyebrows with the first summer break. You can see the difference here and here. 

Alternate timeline, maybe? The title suggest the Road Not Traveled. Or the timeline one of the Annies was torn from, or both. I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around the many-worlds concept that got thrown in a few chapters ago. 

[arkadi]

Well, the translator guy said that the normal thing is for there to be only one timeline, and it's only because of Loup shenanigans that there is more than one.
 
What I find hard to wrap my head around is the idea that neither of the present Annies belongs to this timeline. That seems to imply that Loup created more than one extra timeline (why???) and it also raises the question of what happened to this timeline's Annie.

Since the new chapter seems to be a flashback (?), could it be that, maybe, Coyote did a similar thing at some point for his own reasons (??) and the Annie we've been following has not been the "original" Annie for some time (? ? ?) and it's all going to be revealed now (? ? ? ?) I mean, it's a really long shot, but it might not be the weirdest trick Tom has pulled on the readers, so I'm gonna leave it here just in case.

(If it does turn out to be like that, I wanna be able to say "called it!")

[Max]

Rereading Chapter 74, and noticed that the title appears in panel 4 of page 29. A possible hint.

[nyaroon]

I've been wondering about the title so much.... down the road in story arcs or character arcs is used when a character goes into the wrong direction or goes bad... And then with Paz's reaction last chapter and how she confronted Annie about how she pushed Kat to the limit. It's been shown how Annie pushes things on people without noticing but it's not a main characteristic of her. And Kat has expressed before how she doesn't mind it, but I have a bad feeling, specially since Kats ongoing fiddling with the Aether. She's becoming stronger and may even gain a power kind of like Coyote? Has this been discussed before??
I feel like this chapter will be a revelation one, where Annie realizes what KAt has been becoming... AND now that many of her believers are turning into semi human beigns... does that mean that their input to the aether will be stronger???

[wies]

Apr 24, 2020 15:22:32 GMT nyaroon said:

I feel like this chapter will be a revelation one, where Annie realizes what KAt has been becoming... AND now that many of her believers are turning into semi human beigns... does that mean that their input to the aether will be stronger???

Very likely, yeah.