[2890] "Wha... Did something just happen?"

[imaginaryfriend]

Looks like Renard was excluded this time. And Zoob is upset she missed out.

[laaaa]

..Is this Loup? This person seems very aware of what's happening. Zimmy is less... I dunno. Able to control stuff in general.

[philman]

So we have been assuming the long dark haired girl is Zimmy, but she isn't behaving like Zimmy at all, and seems to be displaying much more the impatience and frustration at being left out of something that Coyote does. I think she is Coyote's disguise, not Zimmy's.

[arf]

Weird as it may seem, the expression in that last panel looks suspiciously like Lana.

I wonder if Coyote is using Lana to tag along, is now a bit miffed to realise her 'death' didn't summon a psychopomp, and realises Annie will figure this out soon, if she hasn't already (which she has).

[imaginaryfriend]

I've always thought Zeta to be something like a broken empath. Worse, actually, since she experiences memories as well as other's emotions. She's often forced into other's feelings and thoughts without her control.

It's probably not too often she's etherically excluded from stuff going on around her. Might even be the first time.

[yellowb]

Jan 17, 2024 8:37:37 GMT arf said:

Weird as it may seem, the expression in that last panel looks suspiciously like Lana.

I wonder if Coyote is using Lana to tag along, is now a bit miffed to realise her 'death' didn't summon a psychopomp, and realises Annie will figure this out soon, if she hasn't already (which she has).

That makes sense. The expression reminded me of Lana, too.

[laaaa]

Jan 17, 2024 8:37:37 GMT arf said:

Weird as it may seem, the expression in that last panel looks suspiciously like Lana.

Oh!!! THAT'S why her expression felt so familiar!

[Per]

She's just holding her breath so she can be the next one to die.

[morrahadesigns]

Jan 17, 2024 12:17:57 GMT laaaa said:

Jan 17, 2024 8:37:37 GMT arf said:

Weird as it may seem, the expression in that last panel looks suspiciously like Lana.

Oh!!! THAT'S why her expression felt so familiar!

Hmmmmm, I was thinking it was Coyote hiding in their midst but I wonder......the last time we saw Lana she looked like she was less than sane... maybe Coyote is piloting her?

[ctso74]

Totally normal NP behavior. Nothing to see here.
Loup may have picked up some of Lana's expressions. This doesn't seem Coyote like to me, whatever that means in a Zimmy bubble.

[rabbit]

Whether the dark-haired NP is Coyote or Zimmy, it makes sense that either of them would be frustrated that they were unable to see something that occurred in the ether.

What surprised me was that Rey did not see anything either. Perhaps none of the other beings with etheric abilities saw anything because this was 'pomp business, and the only psychopomps in the room were Annie and Kat?

As others have pointed out, it is interesting that the dark-haired NP's expression recalls Lana. What if this person is an amalgam of Coyote/Loup/Lana/Zimmy? Distortion's gonna distort, after all.

One other thing - seeing the other NPs discussing (in panel 5) the appearance of Mecha Angel upon an NP's death, I imagined them all immediately going all Judean People's Front Crack Suicide Squad in order to get to see her themselves.

[Gemini Jim]

Black-haired NPC is getting way too much attention not to be an imposter. And she became more prominent as the distortion storyline continued.

Points in Zimmy's favor: She starts to move up from the background to the foreground during the Zimmy part of the Distortion RPG. Also, Annie herself said it, she looks like Zimmy.

Although weirdly, I feel like this actually makes her less likely to be Zimmy, and more likely to be someone else. Maybe Loup? He's already disguised himself as an NPC once... Lana? Maybe even Coyote?

Crazy idea: Lana was a fragment of Coyote. All of Coyote's "anger" at Lana, swallowing her whole, etc., is just play-acting for the sake of getting Loup to fight.
In the Distortion, the Lana costume gets re-used as the black-haired NPC, who is actually Lana Coyote (fragment) in disguise.

(Why just a fragment? Because Coyote was the Riddle Hamster.)

For some reason, I'm still suspicious of Sam. But I don't want to take away from the lovely psycho-pomp and circumstance of his death.

And having two disguised (Coyote and Loup? Coyote and Zimmy? Loup and Lana?) characters would really complicate matters ...

But maybe that's what Tom wants.

[Gemminie]

Annie has turned around, and the first being she sees is Renard, who asks whether something just happened. Evidently the Arbiter did indeed freeze time again for everyone except those directly involved in negotiations. Annie explains what just happened without mentioning the Arbiter at all. The black-haired NP is stunned at not having seen anything. The other NP appear to be in various stages of reverence for the Angel, but the black-haired one looks around at what happened and is apparently frustrated or angry.

Considering all the beings she could really be, the one who would be most annoyed right now would be Coyote, I think. Coyote is the one whose goal is to meet this new deity who can create life when he couldn't and who messed up his plan. He may even have manipulated events so a New Person died so Kat would have to be called (after all, how do you summon a psychopomp? You kill one of the beings they're responsible for, and humans are already compared to ants from Coyote's point of view), but then, wouldn't Coyote know that these negotiations would take place only among those directly involved? Or perhaps not; he's never successfully created any kind of life that would require these negotiations to happen. But then doesn't Coyote have knowledge of everything? Or would that be boring in this case? Anyway, I don't see why Zimmy, Loup, or Gamma would be miffed at not seeing Kat. That leaves only a few possibilities for who she is:

• Coyote
• Just a NP who wanted to see Kat very badly
• Some other character whom we either don't know about or hasn't been involved up to now (but who would that be?)

[jda]

Oh, hello, Lana-in-disguise

[blahzor]

Jan 17, 2024 8:29:05 GMT philman said:

So we have been assuming the long dark haired girl is Zimmy, but she isn't behaving like Zimmy at all, and seems to be displaying much more the impatience and frustration at being left out of something that Coyote does. I think she is Coyote's disguise, not Zimmy's.

Except in distortions Zimmy doesn't act like Zimmy when she's imitating someone else

[silicondream]

Jan 17, 2024 18:46:51 GMT Gemminie said:

• Just a NP who wanted to see Kat very badly

This is a good possibility to keep in mind. Even if she turns out to be Zimmy, Zimmy's disguises so far have been based on pre-existing people, so there may still be an NP who looks and feels like this.

Lana was the first NP to demonstrate that they can be a lot more self-centered than they were as robots (the Ship excepted).  While that's great from a "growing to be human" perspective, it could be trouble if they start developing feelings of jealousy and possessiveness around Kat.  We wouldn't want NPs jumping off cliffs just so they can get some posthumous TLC from their Angel.

[Runningflame]

Jan 17, 2024 18:46:51 GMT Gemminie said:

Or perhaps not; he's never successfully created any kind of life that would require these negotiations to happen.

Point of order: Muut showed up to collect the shadow man who died on the bridge, which means Coyote's glass-eyed men do qualify for psychopomp attention. (Otherwise, good analysis.)

[blahzor]

Jan 18, 2024 4:04:13 GMT silicondream said:

Jan 17, 2024 18:46:51 GMT Gemminie said:

• Just a NP who wanted to see Kat very badly

This is a good possibility to keep in mind. Even if she turns out to be Zimmy, Zimmy's disguises so far have been based on pre-existing people, so there may still be an NP who looks and feels like this.

Lana was the first NP to demonstrate that they can be a lot more self-centered than they were as robots (the Ship excepted).  While that's great from a "growing to be human" perspective, it could be trouble if they start developing feelings of jealousy and possessiveness around Kat.  We wouldn't want NPs jumping off cliffs just so they can get some posthumous TLC from their Angel.

They are wise... they would just drink the koolaid

[taothegreat]

Jan 17, 2024 14:30:46 GMT morrahadesigns said:

Jan 17, 2024 12:17:57 GMT laaaa said:

Oh!!! THAT'S why her expression felt so familiar!

Hmmmmm, I was thinking it was Coyote hiding in their midst but I wonder......the last time we saw Lana she looked like she was less than sane... maybe Coyote is piloting her?

...God it would be so in character for Lana to have been some sort of Coyote plant all along so Loup fell in love with part of himself.

"Haha! Whoops! I forgot about that when I died! How fun!"

[drmemory]

Maybe Lana, but I'm gonna be contrarian and guess that she is not. Actually, panel 6 is more Coyote-like, but Coyote is more aware of what is going on usually, and as far as we know doesn't know enough about the NP to be able to masquerade as one. Nor have a reason to do so.

A time when Coyote looked around rapidly.

If it is Lana, I'm really curious why she'd be there in that role. She's more likely sitting in a toy box in the toy store, waiting to be found.

Agree about the expression though. Consider this: if that's Lana, then it seems more likely that Lana was never Lana. Lana doesn't have a reason to be hanging out in disguise, nor the capability to do so. Unless she is really Coyote, of course. If Lana was Coyote all along, that would be more evidence that everything is till proceeding according to his plan. I doubt he'd have much of a problem k-k-kissing Loup if the role required it!

It's possible we've never met the real Lana, or that there isn't one.

[hp]

From the furious expression I'd guess she's someone like Coyote, Loup, Zimmy, Ysengrim, Red or even Annie. Have we seen anyone else acting that choleric in the comic?

Jan 18, 2024 6:42:09 GMT taothegreat said:

...God it would be so in character for Lana to have been some sort of Coyote plant all along so Loup fell in love with part of himself.

"Haha! Whoops! I forgot about that when I died! How fun!"

But then the whole comic from Coyote emerging from Loup up to swallowing Lana wouldn't make sense from a Doylist point of view.

The comic made a huge fuss around the point that Coyote predicted that Loup would fall in love. Coyote emerged to brag about that, and demanded that even the chapter title highlighted that he knew that would happen.  Then he finds out he had blind spots, didn't account for Kat and Lana, gets pissed that his plan was thwarted and the rest is history.

If he predicted a Lana-like person would cross Loup's path (or even planted her himself), and had actually planned since the beginning to kill her to get a reaction out of him... What would be the point for him to make a fake show out of thinking Loup's crush would be on Annie? He just needed to outright kill Lana and get the same reaction.

I think Coyote having a blind spot is more consistent with him never having met Kat personally.... Someone who happens to be casually amassing power of a kind with which Coyote is not too familiar (technological power so advanced that it starts to become indistinguishable from etheric power, something he made a ravine to keep away from the woods)... And who's just now getting a bigger presence into the "ether scene"

[morrahadesigns]

Jan 18, 2024 6:42:09 GMT taothegreat said:

Jan 17, 2024 14:30:46 GMT morrahadesigns said:

Hmmmmm, I was thinking it was Coyote hiding in their midst but I wonder......the last time we saw Lana she looked like she was less than sane... maybe Coyote is piloting her?

...God it would be so in character for Lana to have been some sort of Coyote plant all along so Loup fell in love with part of himself.

"Haha! Whoops! I forgot about that when I died! How fun!"

Oh gracious. You're completely right about that!

[crater]

This page makes alot more sense now. Omega is confused and flabbergasted that the Girl (Annie) making her predictions go wrong is interfacing with a reality Omega herself is unable to interact with