[2423] "What use is that?!"

[imaginaryfriend]

To be fair, I'd probably check out any hallucinations or illusion I see for a while... for science.

Unless I felt threatened, of course.

[edit]Also worthy of note, there goes Courtnie using Surma's memory as a club again.[/edit]

[wies]

This is going well.

Also F!Annie bringing up a speculation that has been swirling here round for some time: is the reason Anthony is more distant towards C!Annie because she reminds him more of Surma?
The memory of Surma has been a point of contention between them earlier.

[csj]

looking forward to seeing why ys warned about two fire elementals fighting each other

[Fishy]

C'mon Imaginary Rey, we're kinda in the middle of a thing right now.

Yeah, with Zimmy influence on everyone in here I foresee some fire.

[blahzor]

yeah going back to some others have pointed out it seems like the panels aren't actually flowing naturally by mistake on Tom or purpose

[zbeeblebrox]

I'm sure this confrontation is going to be very interesting and emotional, but honestly all I can think about is Gamma stuck watching this from the outside with a tired "told you so" expression the whole time

[jda]

HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER!

SELECT YOUR CHARACTER.

COURTNEY
VERSUS
FANNIE.

ROUND ONE.

READY?

FIGHT!

[apache]

To quote a certain time traveller......

Oh boy.

[Vuk(Wolf)]

I'm with Courtney on this one, the therapeutic benefit of seeing Surma cannot be denied.

[ohthatone]

Rey.exe has stopped working.

They both have a point. It would have been nice to look at her but at the same time it wasn't her and allowing themselves to get lost in an illusion wont benefit anyone.

[pyradonis]

Oh boy, here we go again.

Feb 1, 2021 8:41:20 GMT blahzor said:

yeah going back to some others have pointed out it seems like the panels aren't actually flowing naturally by mistake on Tom or purpose

What do you mean, "not flowing naturally"?

Feb 1, 2021 10:47:29 GMT Vuk(Wolf) said:

I'm with Courtney on this one, the therapeutic benefit of seeing Surma cannot be denied.

Under normal circumstances I would agree, but the goal here is to get out of Birminghell as quick as possible, and each illusion has to be treated as potentially dangerous. There's no reason to risk getting ensnared by whitelegs or forever getting lost inside Zimmy's mind.

[TBeholder]

I suppose squabbling with herself counts as "Zimmy's world: welcome to stage II!", she just doesn't need to use someone else as a puppet.

[ohthatone]

Next page one annie accuses the other of being zimmy, the other tries to GOP the other, rey wont stop saying "Surma" and the elf kids start to wonder if they aren't better off on their own.

[DonDueed]

In the penultimate panel, Courtney lunges at Fannie, and Fannie shrinks back -- so much that in the last panel they're quite far apart again. Presumably there was no contact made.

This leaves open the possibility that one or the other is a GOPable illusion.

The whole scene can be interpreted as Annie (one version or the other) coming to terms with her own conflicted feelings / parts of herself. That's nothing new, though, as we've seen that process working out ever since the shift.

[Gemminie]

So, yep, Court Annie's expression is still pretty much the same as it was last time we saw the front side of her head. Quite upset about the whole mom-gopping thing. There's still a slight hint of one of the elf kids behind her, so they're still here.

Her "... I don't know!" suggests right there that even Court Annie isn't sure what benefit it would have had to allow the illusion to remain. She's not denying at all that what they saw was an illusion. But she's still calling it "her."

Forest Annie is defending herself, rounding on Court Annie and directly questioning what benefit it would have had to leave the illusion there.

But in the next panel she hesitates, so she's not sure she did the right thing. And Forest Annie also calls the illusion "her." I think Forest Annie was also pretty shocked by the whole thing; she just saw it as necessary to get rid of the illusion so they can continue trying to escape. But now she's getting sucked into fighting with her counterpart instead of trying to escape, accusing Court Annie of allowing herself to be taken in.

Court Annie is not pleased by this accusation. And in the only panel in which we see Renard on this page, he's still traumatized by what just happened. We might see him as something similar to the pigeon on Kat's head in chapter 38. Neither Annie has gotten over either the illusion of their mother or the need to dispel that illusion and move on.

Now we have Forest Annie going on the offensive, but hesitating a bit. She suggests that Tony's more distant from Court Annie because she reminds him too much of Surma, which is the theory I've been going on.

But Court Annie counterattacks, both verbally and physically. This is a further development of what she said in chapter 70, although she took it back. She lunges at Forest Annie, her hands clawlike, and Forest Annie leaps back.

In the final panel, Court Annie continues her verbal attack, though Forest Annie's now out of reach, again accusing her twin of having forgotten Surma. They've managed to avoid physical contact even during this confrontation, meaning we still don't know whether one of them is an illusion and whether one will dispel the other.

But I think it's clear that everything each of them are saying is something that the other one also feels, or fears is true about herself. Court Annie knows Forest Annie did the right thing but doesn't want to admit it because it's too painful, while Forest Annie fears that her actions mean that she's more distant from her mother and doesn't want to admit it because it's too painful.

There's no sign of the elf kids by the final panels, meaning they're probably getting out of there, not wanting to get involved in this fight in which they have no idea what's going on. If any of them stays, they're pretty brave. The two Annies have been getting along very well recently, practically finishing each other's sentences, but now their attention's been focused on the weakest fracture plane between them. What's doing this? Zimmy's "beating herslf up," Gamma said, and basically that's what the two Annies want to do to each other, but over things they know about themselves that they don't like.

[drmemory]

Shifted Selves Spar!

Massive Muppet Meltdown!

Perilous Pile of Plushies!

Elf Kids Watch in Horror!

Glowing Fog Grows, Ignored by All!

---

So sorry, this page just seems to call out for tabloid headlines.

[theonethatgotaway]

Surma!

'nuf said.

[fia]

Feb 1, 2021 8:08:33 GMT wies said:

This is going well.

Also F!Annie bringing up a speculation that has been swirling here round for some time: is the reason Anthony is more distant towards C!Annie because she reminds him more of Surma?
The memory of Surma has been a point of contention between them earlier.

Plot twist: it's actually because Courtnie reminds him of himself and (some of) the effect his poor parenting had on her.

[ctso74]

Stop emotional hitting yourself

[TBeholder]

Feb 1, 2021 16:46:54 GMT fia said:

Plot twist: it's actually because Courtnie reminds him of himself and (some of) the effect his poor parenting had on her.

Yes, but does it even matter? They would find something to squabble about. Annie is not at peace with herself.

[etera]

Okay, weird theory but hear me out:

One of the Annies is grabbed from an alternate dimension, right? So what if Zimmyverse magic only works on the one from *this* dimension? Then F!annie is the one from out of town, and C!annie is the local one.

If Anthony figured this out somehow, then he only actually screwed over C!annie. That leaves F!annie as someone that he can actually have a relationship with. Which he does.

Just spitballing here, but that's my guess.

[mturtle7]

I've said it before and i"ll say it again: Tom is a freaking MASTER of storytelling and dialogue. In no other comic could you find a scene where the main character so poignantly narrates her own tumultuous inner monologue by arguing with a clone of herself - "inner/outer dialogue", as Tom puts it. It's so weird, and yet feels so natural, and does so much to characterize Annie right now...I'm in awe.

[ohthatone]

Feb 1, 2021 17:36:20 GMT etera said:

Okay, weird theory but hear me out:

One of the Annies is grabbed from an alternate dimension, right? So what if Zimmyverse magic only works on the one from *this* dimension? Then F!annie is the one from out of town, and C!annie is the local one.

If Anthony figured this out somehow, then he only actually screwed over C!annie. That leaves F!annie as someone that he can actually have a relationship with. Which he does.

Just spitballing here, but that's my guess.

I think it was established in New Contract that neither annie belongs here, which always left me to wonder where *this* dimension's annie is. But maybe it's not as cut and dry as that.

[davidm]

Elf kids... wow didn't know they were such good friends, so beautiful! When they get out Red and Blue will be jealous that they are no longer the leading pair.

[worldsong]

Still siding with Fannie. Both Annies are now getting heated up and lashing out at each other but given how they're reacting to a fake Surma Fannie did the right thing in dispelling the illusion before they got drawn in (more than they already were). This is dangerous territory, not a therapy session.

Also between the accusations they're throwing at each other I feel Courtney's is more mean-spirited.

[blahzor]

Feb 1, 2021 16:46:54 GMT fia said:

Feb 1, 2021 8:08:33 GMT wies said:

This is going well.

Also F!Annie bringing up a speculation that has been swirling here round for some time: is the reason Anthony is more distant towards C!Annie because she reminds him more of Surma?
The memory of Surma has been a point of contention between them earlier.

Plot twist: it's actually because Courtnie reminds him of himself and (some of) the effect his poor parenting had on her.

For the last 16 years he'd been a dad for like a month or 3?

[blahzor]

Feb 1, 2021 18:12:33 GMT ohthatone said:

Feb 1, 2021 17:36:20 GMT etera said:

Okay, weird theory but hear me out:

One of the Annies is grabbed from an alternate dimension, right? So what if Zimmyverse magic only works on the one from *this* dimension? Then F!annie is the one from out of town, and C!annie is the local one.

If Anthony figured this out somehow, then he only actually screwed over C!annie. That leaves F!annie as someone that he can actually have a relationship with. Which he does.

Just spitballing here, but that's my guess.

I think it was established in New Contract that neither annie belongs here, which always left me to wonder where *this* dimension's annie is. But maybe it's not as cut and dry as that.

My current understanding is *this* Annie died and the one we've been following is *a* Annie from another universe the moment the tik-tok touched and saved her

[Isildur]

Feb 1, 2021 14:32:26 GMT DonDueed said:

In the penultimate panel, Courtney lunges at Fannie, and Fannie shrinks back -- so much that in the last panel they're quite far apart again. Presumably there was no contact made.

This leaves open the possibility that one or the other is a GOPable illusion.

The whole scene can be interpreted as Annie (one version or the other) coming to terms with her own conflicted feelings / parts of herself. That's nothing new, though, as we've seen that process working out ever since the shift.

I've been suspecting Courtney for a few pages. We've never seen an indication that one figment can "GOP" another, so Fannie *seems* in the clear.

[Bo No Bo]

I know some people have concerns about 'art style' in the comments, and while I know Tom can be inconsistent sometimes with expressions and characters, we HAVE seen Annie's emotional state tied to the comic art/ aesthetic style at least few times before, and it's especially relevant given Zimmy's distorting effects on the whole thing, down to the fact that these Annie's are really not even true representations of themselves OUTSIDE Zimmyverse. Notice too that the Elf kids are completely gone, and Rey seems near despondent.

I still don't know if Zimmy = alt. Annie ties into all this, but I'm excited to see how Annie resolves this with herself, and how it relates to Zimmy's past trauma, and maybe revelations about their connections. Exciting stuff, to be sure!

[saardvark]

Feb 2, 2021 0:22:31 GMT Bo No Bo said:

I know some people have concerns about 'art style' in the comments, and while I know Tom can be inconsistent sometimes with expressions and characters, we HAVE seen Annie's emotional state tied to the comic art/ aesthetic style at least few times before, and it's especially relevant given Zimmy's distorting effects on the whole thing, down to the fact that these Annie's are really not even true representations of themselves OUTSIDE Zimmyverse. Notice too that the Elf kids are completely gone, and Rey seems near despondent.

I still don't know if Zimmy = alt. Annie ties into all this, but I'm excited to see how Annie resolves this with herself, and how it relates to Zimmy's past trauma, and maybe revelations about their connections. Exciting stuff, to be sure!

welcome to the forum bo no bo!