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Post by warrl on Aug 19, 2021 18:39:05 GMT
Double post for bonus points. Is this the first time we've gotten a gender for Shell? In comic, yes. Out of comic, it was confirmed she was a she on Formspring back around when she first appeared. I wasn't aware of that Formspring post, but I always assumed Shell is female. I also think that she and Aata have some relationship other than strictly professional. Not necessarily a romantic relationship though - there are LOTS of other possibilities, such as that she is his (foster?) daughter. |
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Post by warrl on Aug 19, 2021 18:42:18 GMT
Hmm, Aata apparently orders the withdrawal of the Shadowmen, but isn't joining the retreat yet(?). Maybe he will stay behind to help with the battle, observe, and/or collect roottacles in the aftermath? You mean, he's gonna become a roottaclector? And if he takes them back to the court and plants them, he can be a rootatiller. |
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Post by TBeholder on Aug 19, 2021 18:50:25 GMT
Agreed, on previous pages there was more strategy in the roottacle (love that word!) attack, especially at the beginning. Im just saying there seems less of it here, and perhaps recently. If Aata is a major opponent, why not stab him in the back when he is beflowering Shell? Why Loup didn't just go straight for his throat to begin with? For the same reason, probably. He was provoked by a treacherous attack from Aata, but instead of attacking directly is messing about. Most likely, Loup doesn't know enough about Aata, maybe not even everything Coyote knew (he could stash away another memory, if only to make Loup go with the plan rather than just run off after Aata with bloodshot eyes). So he faces a possibly godlike opponent with unknown capabilities. Loup is mighty, but dysfunctional, and knows this. Aata is weaker overall, of course, but how much? Also, unlike "newborn" Loup he has much experience at being what he is and using his powers. A straightforward attack on someone "almost" up to Coyote's grab-the-Moon trick would be quite reckless. Which way his body is turned at the moment may or may not matter, too. Thus Loup does not commit, but launches feints and probing attacks: it's aggressive reconnaissance. Now he knows Aata couldn't protect his minion in time, but can fix her. And doesn't really act as part of one team with Eglamore and Annie. The next attack can reveal something else… Or. do the same to Eggs, when his back is turned while he's running up to check on Shell? This fits quite well in "Loup keeps the rest occupied" pattern. Eglamore is not Loup's real enemy and right now keeps himself busy rather than interfering with Loup's actions. And interacts with Aata, which may reveal more. So he is left alone (for now, at least). Why stab so many roottacles into the ground, and have some even pop back up again? He's still at it, so who knows. Perhaps he tries to do something? My guess would be either push off the ground or excavate and throw a huge chunk of dirt. In that since others could not neutralize this as easily as feral wood, so Aata will have to deal with incoming Burial Express himself. He will need to distract Eglamore again to prevent snatch-and-leap, however |
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Post by warrl on Aug 19, 2021 18:52:45 GMT
Or tunnel beneath the Court folk and build a wall of roots behind them, to prevent their escape.
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Post by ohthatone on Aug 19, 2021 19:48:30 GMT
re: Tom's twitter
Oh Brinnie.
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Post by pyradonis on Aug 19, 2021 22:37:25 GMT
This whole idea that Annie will have to kill Loup changes things. Annie's going to be going around knowing that she has to do this. She'll be keeping Renard near her all the time. She'll be steeling herself for the eventuality. We'll get to see that anticipation. (And maybe some explanations about how she recombined into one Annie.) That said, the tooth is part of an ethereal being, and Annie and Renard have an ethereal connection with each other. It's possible that he could somehow send it to her. Failing that, perhaps Parley could teleport and get it. So it could potentially happen – but will it? In my opinion Annie won't face Loup with the dagger until later. Will she have to kill him, though? Why can’t Annie just take her agency back and say „Screw that and your plan, Coyote, I’m not going to kill anyone just because you decided so.“ |
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Post by Draxiss on Aug 19, 2021 23:22:06 GMT
Well now I know her pronouns at least.
I feel kind-of weird that Annie's just going with Coyote's plan. Coyote's clearly a bad friend, right? Everything is going according to his plan apparently, and that plan has been awful and stressful for everyone else involved. I'd love to see this get resolved in a way where Annie gets to decide for herself whether Coyote actually deserves to have his death wish fulfilled.
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Post by cassini on Aug 19, 2021 23:30:17 GMT
I always assumed Shell was male, and I was surprisingly disappointed to find out that wasn't the case. Not for any shipping reasons, but if this had been a moment between two male characters, I think it would have been the most emotionally intimate moment between two humanoid male characters in the whole comic so far. I hadn't really noticed it until now but there's just not a lot of male relationships. I'm not talking about romantic, specifically, the male characters just don't seem to be very close to each other. Kat's father and Tony are maybe an exception but I hesitate there because Tony is so...Tony.
Shadow and Robot I am kind of hesitant about including at this point too, because they're both non-human entities and Robot's imagined body looks extremely female so I'm not sure if that means something about their identity (forgive me if this was addressed somewhere off-site too.)
I dunno, there's a lot of really emotionally intimate male-female and female-female relationships, I just wish there were equally emotional relationships with the male characters. Again, not necessarily romantic, though that would be nice too, just... really caring about each other.
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Post by maxptc on Aug 20, 2021 1:44:20 GMT
Having a weapon, be it a sword or gun or unimaginable cosmic power, isn't the same as knowing how to use that weapon, which is also different then being experienced in combat against other people using similar or even weaker weapons. Discipline is also pretty important in combat situations. Loup is vastly outmatched in everything but raw power, and in my experience with stories that isn't usually enough.
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Post by saardvark on Aug 20, 2021 3:28:23 GMT
re: Tom's twitter Oh Brinnie. still carries a Valkyrie powered torch for the guy.... |
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Post by saardvark on Aug 20, 2021 3:35:20 GMT
I always assumed Shell was male, and I was surprisingly disappointed to find out that wasn't the case. Not for any shipping reasons, but if this had been a moment between two male characters, I think it would have been the most emotionally intimate moment between two humanoid male characters in the whole comic so far. I hadn't really noticed it until now but there's just not a lot of male relationships. I'm not talking about romantic, specifically, the male characters just don't seem to be very close to each other. Kat's father and Tony are maybe an exception but I hesitate there because Tony is so...Tony. Shadow and Robot I am kind of hesitant about including at this point too, because they're both non-human entities and Robot's imagined body looks extremely female so I'm not sure if that means something about their identity (forgive me if this was addressed somewhere off-site too.) I dunno, there's a lot of really emotionally intimate male-female and female-female relationships, I just wish there were equally emotional relationships with the male characters. Again, not necessarily romantic, though that would be nice too, just... really caring about each other. its likely because the story is mostly seen from a female perspective (Annie, and to a lesser extent, her best bud Kat), so naturally there is a bias towards more female-male and female-female interactions. Agree with you though, it would be nice, for balance. |
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Post by jda on Aug 20, 2021 5:13:05 GMT
Annie can talk to Renard via their "familiar" link. Renard almost certainly has the tooth inside him. Renard goes to Kat for help, gives Kat the knife, Kat gives it to a carefully selected robot for delivery to Annie in the Forest, and...
Meh. I think Kat has had enuff time to accurately pinpoint Annie location at any time and just remotely send her any device whe would need, in a flash. Maybe she even has made improvements to CoyoteTooth/created a duplicate, since she already scanned it. I am half-half expecting Annie to just do some hand flourish and blink the tooth into her hand. Niceties of being friends with a goddess. |
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Post by drmemory on Aug 20, 2021 6:08:26 GMT
Annie can talk to Renard via their "familiar" link. Renard almost certainly has the tooth inside him. Renard goes to Kat for help, gives Kat the knife, Kat gives it to a carefully selected robot for delivery to Annie in the Forest, and...
Meh. I think Kat has had enuff time to accurately pinpoint Annie location at any time and just remotely send her any device whe would need, in a flash. Maybe she even has made improvements to CoyoteTooth/created a duplicate, since she already scanned it. I am half-half expecting Annie to just do some hand flourish and blink the tooth into her hand. Niceties of being friends with a goddess. Possibly? She'd still have to get word to Kat that it was needed, but if Kat's computer has a range that can reach into the forest, I could see that. I still think it would be funnier to see BoxBot to the rescue though! |
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Post by pyradonis on Aug 20, 2021 8:19:02 GMT
Well now I know her pronouns at least. I feel kind-of weird that Annie's just going with Coyote's plan. Coyote's clearly a bad friend, right? Everything is going according to his plan apparently, and that plan has been awful and stressful for everyone else involved. I'd love to see this get resolved in a way where Annie gets to decide for herself whether Coyote actually deserves to have his death wish fulfilled. I don't see her going with his plan so far. She has neither agreed nor taken any steps towards its fulfilment so far.
I always assumed Shell was male, and I was surprisingly disappointed to find out that wasn't the case. Not for any shipping reasons, but if this had been a moment between two male characters, I think it would have been the most emotionally intimate moment between two humanoid male characters in the whole comic so far. I hadn't really noticed it until now but there's just not a lot of male relationships. I'm not talking about romantic, specifically, the male characters just don't seem to be very close to each other. Kat's father and Tony are maybe an exception but I hesitate there because Tony is so...Tony. Shadow and Robot I am kind of hesitant about including at this point too, because they're both non-human entities and Robot's imagined body looks extremely female so I'm not sure if that means something about their identity (forgive me if this was addressed somewhere off-site too.) I dunno, there's a lot of really emotionally intimate male-female and female-female relationships, I just wish there were equally emotional relationships with the male characters. Again, not necessarily romantic, though that would be nice too, just... really caring about each other. When asked, Tom said that S13 identifies as male, like most other robots as well. I don't see why Don's and Tony's relationship should not count just because Tony has social anxiety? We have seen them together as kids and adults, it is an obvious close friendship. By the way, Eglamore and Renard seem to have become good friends as well, although I admit there hasn't really been much focus on their new and improved relationship. |
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Post by cassini on Aug 20, 2021 10:54:52 GMT
I don't see why Don's and Tony's relationship should not count just because Tony has social anxiety? We have seen them together as kids and adults, it is an obvious close friendship. By the way, Eglamore and Renard seem to have become good friends as well, although I admit there hasn't really been much focus on their new and improved relationship. [/div][/quote] I count relationships that can be seen and felt, not just declared by the narrative. Show, not tell. Don and Tony don't satisfy that to me. And funnily, it's actually more because of Don's behavior than Tony's. They only truly interacted in one chapter, back when Tony first returned, and it was primarily a vehicle for exposition for Annie (and the reader's) eyes. Literally. We don't even see Don actually reacting to the information he's given. We see no concern or shock or pity- he is told an incredible traumatic story and we are shown no sign that it troubles him at all. This is never followed up on. The conversation reads like an investigation or an interview. Eventually Tony has a one-sided narrative and then passes out, and meanwhile his friend has been forwarding all this private info to his daughter, and that is it. There's the flashback of him stressing over Brinnie, also just something Don is sharing for Annie, but iirc that's all we see of their supposedly great friendship. It's nowhere near as developed or visible as many of the others, and on an emotional level it is oddly frigid. Eglamore and Reynard is shown very little, in one chapter. There's potential but it hasn't been followed up on yet. Compare these to many of the other relationships, even among students and side characters, and they just don't seem as emotional, genuine, or meaningful. Just my thoughts, anyway. |
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Post by cassini on Aug 20, 2021 11:14:10 GMT
Guh sorry for the awkward formatting and lack of links, mobile interface is a challenge.
Just wanted to clarify (rather than edit the post again) that I don't expect every single relationship to be fully explored in the same amount of detail, I just noticed that of all of the beautiful detailed emotionally sincere relationships there are in this comic, none of them seem to be between two humanoid males. There's no brothers in arms, no brothers at all really, and most of the emotional heavy lifting is done by female characters or etheric creatures. And that just seemed kind of strange after all this time.
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Post by Gemminie on Aug 20, 2021 17:50:55 GMT
This whole idea that Annie will have to kill Loup changes things. Annie's going to be going around knowing that she has to do this. She'll be keeping Renard near her all the time. She'll be steeling herself for the eventuality. We'll get to see that anticipation. (And maybe some explanations about how she recombined into one Annie.) That said, the tooth is part of an ethereal being, and Annie and Renard have an ethereal connection with each other. It's possible that he could somehow send it to her. Failing that, perhaps Parley could teleport and get it. So it could potentially happen – but will it? In my opinion Annie won't face Loup with the dagger until later. Will she have to kill him, though? Why can’t Annie just take her agency back and say „Screw that and your plan, Coyote, I’m not going to kill anyone just because you decided so.“ Well, what Coyote said suggests to me that he's going to manipulate Loup into making sure Annie can't do anything else. I'm guessing it'll be in a future chapter, not just now (though I could be wrong), but at some point she'll be confronted with a Loup who's going to kill her or someone she loves, and Annie will have no way to stop him other than the dagger, which will be conveniently close at hand. Of course, a lot can happen. Maybe she'll see it coming and do something unexpected to derail the train. Maybe someone else will. I don't know. |
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Post by drmemory on Aug 21, 2021 15:33:27 GMT
I'm a little surprised that the question of Don and Tony being good friends, with an actual close relationship, is in question. They sure seem like buddies to me based on what we've been shown! Donald reminisced about a lot of stuff they used to do together, like making rockets and talking about girls. We saw Tony freaking out (really freaking out, not the internalized version) about Brynhildr, and he let Don see it! Jokes... Tony's obvious comfort level with inviting him in and getting drunk with him, etc. I mean, they aren't exactly Laurel and Hardy, but I think they have been shown to be close friends to the extent that someone like Tony can have one. Don hasn't been shown to be all that demonstrative, but I'd wager it's just because he knows Tony so well and how he'll react to such things. Agree with the larger point that we haven't been shown too many close male relationships, but I'm perfectly fine with that. I bet it's a lot harder to write the other kind! Tom is good at it too - he's made things like Kat liking a boy (who later turned into a bird) and girls getting haircuts so interesting that you don't really see a lot of complaints in the message boards. I think he's quite good about writing about relationships too, even with his self-imposed constraints regarding keeping it SFW and not annoyingly woke. Consider the relationship between Don and Anja, the unrequited love situation with Renard and Surma, the platonic love between Annie and Coyote and Annie and Ysengrin, etc. It all rings pretty true to me - nuanced and complex and not so heavy-handed as to detract from the story. It reminds me a bit of Larry Niven's better writing really - the tech and magic and such are important, and central to the story, but the story is really told through the relationships.
Ok, back to my conspiracy theories and technical analyses I go.  |
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