[2464] I remember it all very distinctly (Friday update)

[philman]

In which Annie remembers both of her former selves, just as we remember both of the former Friday pages (meta?!)

[arf]

That is a very good way of thinking about it.

[madjack]

The thing sticking out to me about this page is she keeps shifting her hands around, like she can't settle. I guess it is a very personal and difficult topic to just exposit like that.

[arf]

With two perspectives, I wonder if Annie now sees her father in 3D.

[V]

I find it interesting that Annie does not count this or this as "seeing it herself". English speakers: wouldn't "first hand" fit better?

[Gemminie]

It looks as if Tom mistakenly skipped a page at first, and some people got to see the next page already, but I didn't! By the time I got here, he'd corrected the error.

On this page, we have Annie performing a bit of reasoning, leading on from the end of the previous page. There's a bit of a tilt to this panel, but only slightly. Annie's got an unchanging expression here that reminds me of how she used to be early on, only instead of deadpan like Jones (and Tony, as we usually see him), she's got a slight smile instead, as if she's swapped one mask for another.

She goes right to the issue of Tony acting differently toward the two different Annies – not terribly unreasonable, as both of her worried about it quite a lot. Tony opening up was like Bigfoot sightings – she'd heard from others that that side of him existed, but she'd never seen it herself*, and she just couldn't believe it, not really. And then Forest Annie returned, and the situation arose that she was alone with him. I guess I'm just kind of rewording what Annie says here, but I think the important bit is that not once in her entire life had she seen the human side of her dad, until then.

Annie paces around and fidgets a lot as she talks, even putting her hands in the pockets of that tiny jacket she's wearing, which is an awkward position. I'm sure she has a lot of feelings about this. If what we've inferred is true and Tony is mind-caged around Recombined Annie, then she's lost that human side of him again, and that can't be a good feeling. Will she ever see her real dad again? That has to be dismaying.

I guess I'll have to wait until Monday to see the next page, which some readers have already accidentally seen.

*EDIT: As V points out above, she'd seen him through her blinker stone (like seeing Bigfoot caught on camera), and she'd heard him talking to Kat, but then he went all mind-cagey as soon as she walked in (like hearing a commotion, then coming upon eyewitnesses who say they just saw Bigfoot run off into the woods). I'm obsessed with Sasquatch today for some reason, but the point is that she'd almost-seen and secondhand-seen the human Tony, but until there was a Forest Annie, she hadn't interacted with him at all, ever.

[basser]

Yo this girl still freakin me out.

[Isildur]

May 7, 2021 11:52:30 GMT arf said:

With two perspectives, I wonder if Annie now sees her father in 3D.

Your suggesting her (figurative) vision was previously a bit flat?
Of the characters on today's page, Annie isn't the one with a monocular nickname.

[bedinsis]

May 7, 2021 11:51:12 GMT madjack said:

The thing sticking out to me about this page is she keeps shifting her hands around, like she can't settle. I guess it is a very personal and difficult topic to just exposit like that.

For some reason I am reminded of Paz on this page

[csj]

I mean you already saw a peek of that when donny borrowed your fancy rock

[silicondream]

For some reason, I’ve got "This Charming Man" playing in the back of my head while reading this whole scene.

May 7, 2021 11:56:57 GMT V said:

I find it interesting that Annie does not count this or this as "seeing it herself". English speakers: wouldn't "first hand" fit better?

Well, that’s the nature of many types of love, yes? If you haven’t experienced them directed at you, you haven’t really experienced them at all.

May 7, 2021 12:15:47 GMT Gemminie said:

If what we've inferred is true and Tony is mind-caged around Recombined Annie, then she's lost that human side of him again, and that can't be a good feeling. Will she ever see her real dad again? That has to be dismaying.

I’ll save most thoughts for the next thread, but I wouldn’t exactly equate “the man my mother fell in love with” with “human.” Tony has other ways to express his love besides turning on the charm, and Annie is already familiar with some of those; she’s never seen him as a robot. Now she’s been able to directly experience him with the mind cage both open and shut, and that will make it easier for her to read his true feelings in either state. More bittersweet than dismaying.

[mochakimono]

The less she smiles, the less suspicious she seems. Annie being all smiles lately felt unnatural. Now she's just addressing things more calmly as usual. Honestly it was her unusually cheerful demeanor that made me wonder if something was more amiss, with her eyes, but now it doesn't seem that's the case. (OR IS IT???)

[Isildur]

May 7, 2021 12:15:47 GMT Gemminie said:

It looks as if Tom mistakenly skipped a page at first, and some people got to see the next page already, but I didn't! By the time I got here, he'd corrected the error.

On this page, we have Annie performing a bit of reasoning, leading on from the end of the previous page. There's a bit of a tilt to this panel, but only slightly. Annie's got an unchanging expression here that reminds me of how she used to be early on, only instead of deadpan like Jones (and Tony, as we usually see him), she's got a slight smile instead, as if she's swapped one mask for another.

She goes right to the issue of Tony acting differently toward the two different Annies – not terribly unreasonable, as both of her worried about it quite a lot. Tony opening up was like Bigfoot sightings – she'd heard from others that that side of him existed, but she'd never seen it herself*, and she just couldn't believe it, not really. And then Forest Annie returned, and the situation arose that she was alone with him. I guess I'm just kind of rewording what Annie says here, but I think the important bit is that not once in her entire life had she seen the human side of her dad, until then.

Annie paces around and fidgets a lot as she talks, even putting her hands in the pockets of that tiny jacket she's wearing, which is an awkward position. I'm sure she has a lot of feelings about this. If what we've inferred is true and Tony is mind-caged around Recombined Annie, then she's lost that human side of him again, and that can't be a good feeling. Will she ever see her real dad again? That has to be dismaying.

I guess I'll have to wait until Monday to see the next page, which some readers have already accidentally seen.

*EDIT: As V points out above, she'd seen him through her blinker stone (like seeing Bigfoot caught on camera), and she'd heard him talking to Kat, but then he went all mind-cagey as soon as she walked in (like hearing a commotion, then coming upon eyewitnesses who say they just saw Bigfoot run off into the woods). I'm obsessed with Sasquatch today for some reason, but the point is that she'd almost-seen and secondhand-seen the human Tony, but until there was a Forest Annie, she hadn't interacted with him at all, ever.

Something I just thought to wonder: What's the farthest distance we've seen her project since Ysengrin destroyed the bllnker stone? She doesn't need it for her fire powers or for local ether projection anymore, obviously, but I'm not clear if she now can now have far-sight of the physical world as she could with the stone.

Anyway, it would probably be best if no one ever, ever points out to Tony that Annie could be viewing him at any time.

Update given Monday's comic (I wrote the text above on Friday but left it open in a tab, unsubmitted): Monday seems to imply she can not do distance seeing without using the link to Renard. What I said above may still apply, though, in the limited case -- if Tony becomes aware that she can see through Renard's eyes, he might stay in telegraph mode whenever he sees Renard alone, too. His apparently sarcastic "so easy" comment to Jones seems to indicate that his mind cage engages if he so much as tries to get around it by some means like writing to her or deliberately speaking through an intermediary. (Though that raises the question of how he was able to avoid suspecting Jones might relay what he said.)

[Gemminie]

May 11, 2021 19:41:35 GMT Isildur said:

Something I just thought to wonder: What's the farthest distance we've seen her project since Ysengrin destroyed the bllnker stone? She doesn't need it for her fire powers or for local ether projection anymore, obviously, but I'm not clear if she now can now have far-sight of the physical world as she could with the stone.

Hmm, good question. Chapter 57: she projects the length of a bowling lane to control the ball. Chapter 58: not that far; she projects only within the classroom. Chapter 59: she projects from the boat to the bottom of the river. Chapter 68: difficult to say; she may project to various parts of the forest, but Loup may be either helping her or physically moving her body around. Chapter 69: Both Annies project slightly to check each other out. Chapter 73: doesn't seem she projects except to communicate with Loup. Chapter 79: no idea. What does distance even mean here? Anyway, not that far, but I don't know if she projected too far when she still had her blinker stone either. With the stone she could extend her senses to where the stone was, and she can't do that anymore, but that's not quite the same.

Anyway, it would probably be best if no one ever, ever points out to Tony that Annie could be viewing him at any time.

I see what you mean! He might never leave cage mode. But then, Surma was able to do the same, so it's not as if he doesn't know that such things can happen. For that matter, what about Court surveillance? He sweeps for bugs at least sometimes, but I'm not sure every location where we've seen him open up is a place he's swept.

Update given Monday's comic (I wrote the text above on Friday but left it open in a tab, unsubmitted): Monday seems to imply she can not do distance seeing without using the link to Renard.

Wait, what? We've seen her project without the stone. I think in the commentary to chapter 27, Tom said that Annie can't go through walls when projected but can perhaps go through small openings. That might be what Annie means – well that, and the fact that looking through Renard's eyes, she could also mentally communicate to Renard what she wants him to say or ask. With Renard there could be communication of some kind; she can't do that with just remote viewing.

What I said above may still apply, though, in the limited case -- if Tony becomes aware that she can see through Renard's eyes, he might stay in telegraph mode whenever he sees Renard alone, too. His apparently sarcastic "so easy" comment to Jones seems to indicate that his mind cage engages if he so much as tries to get around it by some means like writing to her or deliberately speaking through an intermediary. (Though that raises the question of how he was able to avoid suspecting Jones might relay what he said.)

I was going on the theory that Jones doesn't usually tell about what she knows. I doubt she'd tell Annie what he told her unless Tony gave the go-ahead. But I think his "so easy" comment may have been sarcastic, or it may have been a prologue to an idea that he was having for communicating with Annie indirectly, perhaps an idea that the conversation had sparked.

[silicondream]

May 12, 2021 2:13:53 GMT Gemminie said:

But I think his "so easy" comment may have been sarcastic, or it may have been a prologue to an idea that he was having for communicating with Annie indirectly, perhaps an idea that the conversation had sparked.

Perhaps he's currently inside the house, practicing his indirect communication face.