[2904] Let go!

[Per]

Bwipping through a corridor, as previously seen way back on page 4.

[blahzor]

A jump through shadows memories? Will we find out that he was also nearby when Robot confronted Lupe and allowed him to go unnoticed supposedly

[gpvos]

Ah right, it is how it looks like when people travel by memory in the distortion. I thought it was how a person-merge looked like, assuming the black-haired NP was CoyZimLoup and they got merged because they also ran into them, more or less.

[pyradonis]

So, our mystery person does have a genuine NP speech bubble in addition to the genuine tracksuit.

[morrahadesigns]

Was that Mort's room?

I miss Mort. 😔

[Gemminie]

After vanishing with a BWIP! in front of Renard's eyes, Annie, Shadow 2, and the mystery New Person have apparently shifted to a part of the distortion that resembles Page 4 of the comic. The "Solitary study means just that" sign has been recollected as "Silent study means just that," but the window overlooking the Forest is there. Shadow starts to ask Annie a question, but Mystery NP ignores him and demands that Annie let go of her. Annie starts to say "Wait," probably, but then, BWIP, they're off to somewhere else.

Is it possible that where somebody goes in this distortion is a matter of majority rule? If one person has an idea where they're going and the rest don't, the leader determines the destination, as with Annie jumping to her memories of Ysengrin in the Forest, but then many of the NP recognized the bridge, so that was where they went; Annie was outvoted. Annie may have figured this out, as she got all the NP to think of Kat's lab, and they all went there. Is it possible that Mystery NP wants to send Shadow somewhere else, but because Annie's involved, it's two against one, and they've gone to a space that involves both Shadow and Annie? But where might they go next? There are various places they could go that involve both of them – the river shore being another one – but Mystery NP may be trying to leave Shadow somewhere and get him out of the way. Might we see something about Shadow before he and Annie met? We've never known how he came to be in the Court to begin with.

[Gemini Jim]

Feb 19, 2024 15:27:37 GMT morrahadesigns said:

Was that Mort's room?

I miss Mort. 😔

I was thinking the same thing, but Mort's "Dulce et Decorum est" sign was embedded in the wall. This sign is hanging from the ceiling, as in Shadow's first appearance, as others have pointed out.


I wonder which memory stop is next?


Also, like the party members in an RPG video game who show up like magic when you need them, it looks like Rey mysteriously "caught up" with the other rabbit hole descenders. At least, that looks like his tail, and not Annie's shirt in the last warp panel.

[pyradonis]

Feb 19, 2024 16:34:11 GMT Gemini Jim said:

Also, like the party members in an RPG video game who show up like magic when you need them, it looks like Rey mysteriously "caught up" with the other rabbit hole descenders. At least, that looks like his tail, and not Annie's shirt in the last warp panel.

I do think it is Annie's shirt, the mysterious NP's tracksuit is distorted in a similar way, and I think it would have been sort of pointless to explicitly show Renard being left behind only to just have him reappear here.

Feb 19, 2024 15:42:29 GMT Gemminie said:

After vanishing with a BWIP! in front of Renard's eyes, Annie, Shadow 2, and the mystery New Person have apparently shifted to a part of the distortion that resembles Page 4 of the comic. The "Solitary study means just that" sign has been recollected as "Silent study means just that," but the window overlooking the Forest is there. Shadow starts to ask Annie a question, but Mystery NP ignores him and demands that Annie let go of her. Annie starts to say "Wait," probably, but then, BWIP, they're off to somewhere else.

Is it possible that where somebody goes in this distortion is a matter of majority rule? If one person has an idea where they're going and the rest don't, the leader determines the destination, as with Annie jumping to her memories of Ysengrin in the Forest, but then many of the NP recognized the bridge, so that was where they went; Annie was outvoted. Annie may have figured this out, as she got all the NP to think of Kat's lab, and they all went there. Is it possible that Mystery NP wants to send Shadow somewhere else, but because Annie's involved, it's two against one, and they've gone to a space that involves both Shadow and Annie? But where might they go next? There are various places they could go that involve both of them – the river shore being another one – but Mystery NP may be trying to leave Shadow somewhere and get him out of the way. Might we see something about Shadow before he and Annie met? We've never known how he came to be in the Court to begin with.

Tom once said he is descended from the glass-eyed people which remained trapped in the Court after their Bound Dog was destroyed, as shown in "Ties".

I think we won't go back to the river shore. A memory private to Shadow (assuming he's real) could be interesting; my spontaneous first thought was the event when Shadow was cut from the floor and transformed into 3D, a moment of weirdness which also indirectly involved Coyote (and might bring a memory version of the Coyote Tooth into play - as memory-Jeanne demonstrated, it should still be deadly in the distortion (I assume the real Coyote Tooth is stored within Renard's body and thus inaccessible to Annie right now)).

It might be fun to speculate though which other memories this brief moment within the solitary study room might bring up within Annie and/or Shadow. Interesting also that the sign in the room has both different wording and a different font than back then, but that's likely simply caused by inexact memory.

[morrahadesigns]

Feb 19, 2024 16:34:11 GMT Gemini Jim said:

Feb 19, 2024 15:27:37 GMT morrahadesigns said:

Was that Mort's room?

I miss Mort. 😔

I was thinking the same thing, but Mort's "Dulce et Decorum est" sign was embedded in the wall. This sign is hanging from the ceiling, as in Shadow's first appearance, as others have pointed out.


I wonder which memory stop is next?


Also, like the party members in an RPG video game who show up like magic when you need them, it looks like Rey mysteriously "caught up" with the other rabbit hole descenders. At least, that looks like his tail, and not Annie's shirt in the last warp panel.

Ah, you're right about the sign. But I think the swatch of white in the bwip is just Annie's shirt, since we saw the same thing in the previous page as well. 
Annie's truncated "wait" on this page seems directed more at Shadow than at the Sus NP though. I'm wondering if she noticed something. 

[morrahadesigns]

The cinnamon bun was an odd detail to sneak in, don't you think?

[blazingstar]

Feb 19, 2024 8:28:02 GMT Per said:

As previously seen way back on page 4.

I'm so glad we started off the thread with this callback, because I never would have remembered where that sign is from, not in a million years, and I came here hoping someone else did. So thank you.

Edit: I guess when Tom says "haven't been here in awhile", "awhile" means more like "almost twenty years". Sheesh.

[drmemory]

So, who would look ultra-suspicious when confronted by Annie, right after looking excited to be able to look around Kat's NP barracks and workshop, and then try to kidnap Shadow 2 when he showed up? The plot thickens!

Probably not Robot. The personality doesn't seem right, and there is no reason for S13 to be masquerading as an NP nor for the attempt to escape/kidnap. Also, Shadow showing up in a panic like that probably means Robot is in trouble.

Probably not Coyote. While anyone could be Coyote in theory, the personality and actions don't really match. I really kind of thought that the dark-haired NP girl might be Coyote and that she may also have been Lana, but the current shadownapping attempt makes it seem less likely. Not impossible though - it's really hard to be sure of what Coyote may want to do and why he'd want to do it.

Who does this leave? Omega. Maybe. I'm thinking my wild theory about the NP being Omega may not be all that wild after all.

If it isn't Omega, who might be excited to learn more about the NPs and Kat's operation and might want to kidnap a rogue Shadow Man... then it may be someone we have yet to meet. Which also matches Omega, of course. At least as far as we know. It COULD be someone we haven't seen nor heard of, but I feel like Tom is more trying to tie up and resolve plot threads than to add whole new characters.

[drmemory]

It probably doesn't matter since we're blipping around inside a distortion, but the moon where Annie, Shadow 2, and our mystery guest are right now is a small crescent, whereas it was full when Annie snagged the suspicious character.

Also, and this may just be the art, but the moon in panel 2 looks pretty different from the moon in panel 3! Could time be moving fast where they are? Possibly in reverse as well? Just a thought...

[Corvo]

Of course! She is the "!" spider! It was so obvious!

[pyradonis]

Feb 19, 2024 21:56:34 GMT drmemory said:

It probably doesn't matter since we're blipping around inside a distortion, but the moon where Annie, Shadow 2, and our mystery guest are right now is a small crescent, whereas it was full when Annie snagged the suspicious character.

Also, and this may just be the art, but the moon in panel 2 looks pretty different from the moon in panel 3! Could time be moving fast where they are? Possibly in reverse as well? Just a thought...

The moon in panel 2 is the same as it was way back on page 4. It does indeed look different in panel 3, but in panel 3 also the whole room seems suddenly elongated and the wall suddenly is several meters away from Shadow 2. It has quite the dreamlike quality. Or - theory - panel 3 is how this place / moment in time looks to Shadow 2, who was still a 2D being and might have perceived things differently back then.

[ophidiophile]

Looks like Shadow has an ex.

[drmemory]

Feb 19, 2024 22:17:55 GMT pyradonis said:

Feb 19, 2024 21:56:34 GMT drmemory said:

It probably doesn't matter since we're blipping around inside a distortion, but the moon where Annie, Shadow 2, and our mystery guest are right now is a small crescent, whereas it was full when Annie snagged the suspicious character.

Also, and this may just be the art, but the moon in panel 2 looks pretty different from the moon in panel 3! Could time be moving fast where they are? Possibly in reverse as well? Just a thought...

The moon in panel 2 is the same as it was way back on page 4. It does indeed look different in panel 3, but in panel 3 also the whole room seems suddenly elongated and the wall suddenly is several meters away from Shadow 2. It has quite the dreamlike quality. Or - theory - panel 3 is how this place / moment in time looks to Shadow 2, who was still a 2D being and might have perceived things differently back then.

The moon is behind Shadow in both panels.  We didn't see it from his point of view in either panel, did we?  No reason for it to change shape that I can see.  Unless it's to do with distortion of time or space.  Or just a stylistic decision, of course.  But it is clearly different in those two panels, and they don't seem to be in mid-transition in either (or I'd blame it on that).

More worried about who the NP is.  The personality just doesn't match up with any one entity that I can think of.  If it isn't Omega, perhaps it is Jenny?  She was pretty cranky last time we saw her, and might be able to understand how the distortion works well enough to blip them around.  But I can't think of any specific reason why she'd jump Shadow 2 like that.

Another long shot is - one of the Court suits or Court Shadow Men.  I could see someone like that being curious about Kat's place and upset about the presence of Shadow, but again, the personality is off for that, and I can't see how someone like that could possibly understand distortion travel.  So I'm keeping my cookies on Omega for now.

Another thought - is the way the fake NP girl is pulling them from place to place the same way as how Annie does it?  When they changed scenes before it was a lot less dramatic and spiral-y.  It almost seems like FNG (Fake NP Girl) is moving them in a more brute-force manner.  Which could be consistent with Omega.  Possibly.  Aside from the visuals, it's also different - only people she is in contact with are being taken along.  All the other travels, whoever was loosely part of the group pretty much peacefully meandered along with the group.  Except for when the Arbiter showed up, but he's got his own way of doing things.

[Hatredman]

Feb 19, 2024 15:27:37 GMT morrahadesigns said:

Was that Mort's room?

I miss Mort. 😔

No, that was the room on chapter 01 (zero uno) where Annie confronted Shadow for the firts time.

She wasn't even known as Annie back then.

[TBeholder]

And now butt-implosion. Are these «BWIP» effects just going to look more and more ridiculous?

[Hatredman]

Feb 20, 2024 5:22:19 GMT drmemory said:

So I'm keeping my cookies on Omega for now.

I do agree, she's Omega - and thus, she is Future Transparent Person.