[2738] "Zimmy said I'm gonna do WHAT!?"

[imaginaryfriend]

This is before Kat goes too far, I guess.

...with the wasabi?

[madjack]

If it is wasabi then its probably a good thing Annie got to her before she'd started eating.

Being told someone thinks you're going to kill them while that's halfway down would be a doubly unpleasant experience.

[arf]

'Omega' is Zimmy's term for wasabi?

[imaginaryfriend]

Jan 27, 2023 8:20:30 GMT arf said:

'Omega' is Zimmy's term for wasabi?

My friends and I used to call wasabi the "green mint sauce" or "the dessert."

...at least when dining with people who were completely unfamiliar with sushi.

[arf]

Well, it makes Zimmy sound more rational:
"Your friend, she's gonna kill me. I.. I knew it all along. She's going to use wasabi to do it."

[philman]

This feels like the obvious set up to a "I will build a machine to make so that my powers cannot be abused", resulting in the machine explicitly abusing her powers.

[silicondream]

Jan 27, 2023 8:57:44 GMT philman said:

This feels like the obvious set up to a "I will build a machine to make so that my powers cannot be abused", resulting in the machine explicitly abusing her powers.

Or "I will study Zimmy and learn how to avoid hurting her," resulting in Kat hurting Zimmy by observing her too closely.

[hnau]

I'm gonna do what?

Oh! That's great!

I will construct a robotic killing device.

[guntherkrieg]

Jan 27, 2023 8:57:44 GMT philman said:

This feels like the obvious set up to a "I will build a machine to make so that my powers cannot be abused", resulting in the machine explicitly abusing her powers.

A story as old as time


https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/bw3le/caveman_science_fiction_you_are_play_gods/

[guntherkrieg]

Jan 27, 2023 9:20:52 GMT silicondream said:

Jan 27, 2023 8:57:44 GMT philman said:

This feels like the obvious set up to a "I will build a machine to make so that my powers cannot be abused", resulting in the machine explicitly abusing her powers.

Or "I will study Zimmy and learn how to avoid hurting her," resulting in Kat hurting Zimmy by observing her too closely.

Shades of Earthbound.

"I'll put Zimmy in this Safety Capsule so I cannot possible kill her. Forever."

[Eily]

Looks like we're going to have Annie‘s internal monologue for this chapter

[Corvo]

Paz brings the best lunches!

[blahzor]

Kat dresses like a murderer including eating sushi

[itrogash]

This brings out the "Who the hell starts conversation like that, I just sat down!" energy.

[yellowb]

Jan 27, 2023 12:07:35 GMT Eily said:

Looks like we're going to have Annie‘s internal monologue for this chapter

I've really missed narrator Annie!

[Igniz]

If Paz was the one who brought lunches, she's the one who's going to kill them. Or Kat at least.

- Help! The wasabi is poisoned!
- No, it just tastes like that.
- ...Oh.

[TBeholder]

Jan 27, 2023 8:40:28 GMT arf said:

Well, it makes Zimmy sound more rational:
"Your friend, she's gonna kill me. I.. I knew it all along. She's going to use wasabi to do it."

Now, now. Kat probably is not the best cook, but she isn’t Xelloss.

[ctso74]

Sweet Mercy! Kat had Paz turn Zimmy into eatable rice rolled chunks! Those animals!

[rabbit]

Kat's response today is such as tonal shift from the mad scientist vibe here that I have to wonder if she's the same Kat. At least one forum member - rabbit is too lazy busy nibbling cabbages to find it - has suggested that Omega could be Kat from another timeline, the Kat who "took a dark road." Today's episode may well point to that?



In other news, I thought "wasabi!" was a cool way to say "hello" when visiting an apiary.

[Gemminie]

Evidently the narrator for the previous page was Annie, because it continues onto this page, where it's unambiguously Annie narrating. The fact that we're seeing Annie narrating again, as she did at the beginning of the story, does bring the feel back to the way it used to be in a way. The use of narration also suggests that we're going to jump around from one scene to another in this chapter.

This scene shows Kat eating outdoors with Paz, sitting on some steps by a railing, looking surprised at Annie, who has just told them about Kat's prediction from the previous chapter. It appears that Annie has not arrived too late to prevent Kat from doing something disastrous, as Kat has apparently not done much at all. That could be deceptive, however – she could have any number of programs running in the background on her computer, out of sight. But clearly Kat has no intention of doing any harm to Zimmy or anyone else. Again, though, that doesn't make any difference sometimes; Kat has set a lot of things in motion without intending to, only some of which she realizes.

So the chapter's first page now feels a lot more like, "Oh, the deactivated robots rose from their graves, but first, this happened ..." I believe that Kat has been trying to conceal from Annie the fact that she reactivated all the ancient robots (but one) to help her with the New People. (I can't help wondering whether she activated S1 as well.) That's why I'm wondering whether this first line of narration refers to them. I suppose there are also all those deactivated robots lying out there, buried or semi-buried, on what used to be the edge of the Court. Some still have CPUs, I suppose, unless the New People have managed to locate and rescue them all. Considering that their workforce grows with each one they rescue (well, mostly – I have to wonder whether some of them refused the offer to get a new body), I imagine the project is constantly accelerating, until the remaining buried CPUs start to become scarce or difficult to reach. Or ... Annie's narration might just refer to the New People as "rising from their graves," because their former bodies had been buried, so it's telling us nothing we don't already know but in more dramatic terms.

[silicondream]

Jan 27, 2023 11:07:22 GMT guntherkrieg said:

Jan 27, 2023 9:20:52 GMT silicondream said:

Or "I will study Zimmy and learn how to avoid hurting her," resulting in Kat hurting Zimmy by observing her too closely.

Shades of Earthbound.

"I'll put Zimmy in this Safety Capsule so I cannot possible kill her. Forever."

That's a particularly apt comparison because Porky put himself in the Absolutely Safe Capsule, and might actually be content in there because of his craving for isolation. It's like severe drug addiction; it puts him in a state which is hellish by most people's standards, and which will probably drive him completely insane, but at the same time it is something he wants and chose for himself.

Kat's schtick has pretty much always been personal empowerment; as illustrated by her argument with Paz over the lab mice, she hates it when living things are used as tools for somebody else's benefit. But Zimmy is someone who shouldn't be further empowered, at least in certain ways, because she has such strong self-destructive tendencies. Perhaps the risk here is that Kat will try to give Zimmy what she wants--tools to isolate herself from the observation she hates, for instance--and Zimmy will use them to cut herself off from other people forever.

[pylgrimm]

Oh hey, it seems we have a self-fulfilling prophecy in our hands. By communicating it to Annie, it set in motion the events that will bring about its fulfillment.

[todd]

Jan 27, 2023 13:41:21 GMT yellowb said:

I've really missed narrator Annie!

So have I.

[drmemory]

A small digression from wild robot theories and who is going to kill who and whether we can trust teenage witches and such:

Does Paz eat meat? She can talk to birds and animals, so I have to wonder... I ask because it seems like she probably wouldn't want to eat things that can talk to her.

That looks like Sushi they are eating. Can Paz talk to fish? We know she can talk to alien crustaceans, even underwater!

[Ophel]

You know, Tom has some interesting driving methods regarding how the story is steered.

[madjack]

Jan 28, 2023 6:50:00 GMT drmemory said:

A small digression from wild robot theories and who is going to kill who and whether we can trust teenage witches and such:

Does Paz eat meat? She can talk to birds and animals, so I have to wonder... I ask because it seems like she probably wouldn't want to eat things that can talk to her.

That looks like Sushi they are eating. Can Paz talk to fish? We know she can talk to alien crustaceans, even underwater!

www.chrysoprax.org/gunnerkrigg/results?term=paz

Search 'vegetarian' and the answer is a hard no. She's shown herself to be fairly pragmatic/realistic about things* so I'd guess she's accepting that refusing to eat an already dead animal won't bring it back?

No answer on fish specifically but I think the answer was that the animal had to be able to vocalise somehow? As in, she can't talk to insects or spiders. That's just a vague memory of reading that somewhere, so no source on it.

*When nobody's threatening Kat.

[arf]

I don't we've heard from Annie the narrator since Microsat 5
(Update: No, Evac also has narration)

[TBeholder]

Jan 27, 2023 22:24:19 GMT pylgrimm said:

Oh hey, it seems we have a self-fulfilling prophecy in our hands. By communicating it to Annie, it set in motion the events that will bring about its fulfillment.

Zimmy is enough of a mess that it’s quite possible.

Jan 28, 2023 6:50:00 GMT drmemory said:

Does Paz eat meat? She can talk to birds and animals, so I have to wonder... I ask because it seems like she probably wouldn't want to eat things that can talk to her.

No, that was the leech from Snarf Quest.

Jan 28, 2023 7:21:20 GMT madjack said:

www.chrysoprax.org/gunnerkrigg/results?term=paz
Search 'vegetarian' and the answer is a hard no. She's shown herself to be fairly pragmatic/realistic about things* so I'd guess she's accepting that refusing to eat an already dead animal won't bring it back?

No answer on fish specifically but I think the answer was that the animal had to be able to vocalise somehow? As in, she can't talk to insects or spiders. That's just a vague memory of reading that somewhere, so no source on it.

The same list you linked, 3 lines below 'vegetarian'.

[madjack]

Jan 28, 2023 9:31:27 GMT TBeholder said:

The same list you linked, 3 lines below 'vegetarian'.

That'd be it. I just ctrl+f'd vegetarian and didn't look all that hard at the others.

[Igniz]

Jan 27, 2023 17:42:11 GMT rabbit said:

Kat's response today is such as tonal shift from the mad scientist vibe here that I have to wonder if she's the same Kat

More than mad scientist-ish, I read it more as when someone starts talking about something they're really passionate about.

Jan 28, 2023 6:50:00 GMT drmemory said:

That looks like Sushi they are eating. Can Paz talk to fish?

The three key ingredient in sushi are sushi-meshi or "sushi rice" (also known as shari or sumeshi, a preparation of white, short-grained Japanese rice mixed with a dressing of rice vinegar, sugar and salt and, occasionally, kombu kelp and sake), nori (the dark green seaweed wrappers), and gu (the ingredients used inside sushi). Typically, gu consists of varieties of fish and other seafood (squid, eel, octopus, shrimp, clam , crab...), but other ingredients are just as popular, with the more common being pickled radish, pickled vegetables, fermented soybeans, avocado, cucumber, asparagus, yam, pickled umeboshi, gourd, burdock, sweet corn, tofu and eggs, with imitation crab sticks being common as well.

TL;DR: There are types of sushi that don't use fish or other seafood at all.