[2975] "And she just kidnapped my parents?!"

[imaginaryfriend]

In an easily foreseeable development, the Donlans go bye-bye.

Next update: Antimony informs Kat about what she's been up to between Omega-nappings?

[yellowb]

I love Kat in the last panel.

[arf]

I note the distortion is becoming apparent in the last panel.

(Come on, Kat: Annie has only just found out about Omega herself.)

[Eily]

I don't really understand the whole disappearing thing. At first I thought the teleportation thing was about remembering places, but it clearly works with people too, couldn't just Kat do it again?
Even if it only works once, surely she could do it with her mom now that she did with her father

[gpvos]

Burning questions!

[guntherkrieg]

Mini treatise page in the last panel.

[davidm]

fight fire with fire. fight terrible with Terrible.

why couldn't they just go to boxbot?

instead they are going to get everyone else kidnapped and then Kat is going to end zimmy.

[morrahadesigns]

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
Well gee Kat, I'm so sorry I tried to get to your parents without wasting time on exposition so that we could hopefully save them from whatever Omega is up to! My bad!

[blahzor]

Annie doesn't even know she's turning fire elemental via cloth

[blahzor]

Aug 2, 2024 8:13:13 GMT arf said:

I note the distortion is becoming apparent in the last panel.

(Come on, Kat: Annie has only just found out about Omega herself.)

doesn't excuse this, should have beeped her 911

[fia]

As a longtime fan, I just want to say these last few pages are CHOCK-FULL of amazing potential avatars, for anyone looking.

[Gemini Jim]

Well, I can see why Kat would be mad. Annie just sort of BWIPped her without any explanation, and now she dumps a giant "oh by the way, the Omega Device is a girl" on her.

I mean, yes, it makes more sense from Annie's POV, because maybe she knew that time was of the essence. but they've just lost both Tony and the Donlans.

things are not going well for our heroes, and they probably need to switch plans if they're going to ever catch up with Meg. you know, maybe discuss stuff with the mech genius.

[imaginaryfriend]

Aug 2, 2024 8:44:37 GMT Eily said:

I don't really understand the whole disappearing thing. At first I thought the teleportation thing was about remembering places, but it clearly works with people too, couldn't just Kat do it again?
Even if it only works once, surely she could do it with her mom now that she did with her father

Oct 2, 2023 16:22:58 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

For people having trouble with this: We don't tend to think about it much but we move by changing ourselves. Consider a snake; it doesn't have limbs but it manipulates its own shape and by doing so it gets around just fine. Antimony now finds herself in a place where walking or running won't get her anywhere. The ether makes a subjective perspective a teeny bit real (and vice-versa) on a regular basis, more so in Gillite and the Court than elsewhere, but inside this distortion mental events are even more real than usual. Remember the old Chuck Norris joke about how he doesn't walk, he rotates the world beneath him? Maybe you can remember being young enough that you actually thought about the world as something you rotated beneath you as your young self struggled with balance as you walked, reaching out to grab things to steady yourself. If not, then think about how the scene can transition when you dream. Perhaps most of the time you're just elsewhere without really processing how you got there. If it's a lucid dream you have some control over what you do and where you go but unless you're in the right frame of mind for it you can't just be elsewhere. The distortion is a mental event like a dream, but also like reality... and like reality things that happen here can have real consequences. Exactly what those consequences are remains to be seen but if a character becomes transmogrified or dies in here it's as real as they let it be. Likewise the sunlight is just something where Antimony is/was that she's grabbing onto to help her change herself in a way that will not allow her to move, but just be elsewhere. The real trick will be not only being where she wants to be but herding the Noobmenz safely along with her.

For people travelling by their own free will the trick appears to be strongly remembering a place and how they felt while there; being etherically enabled, a memory that's strongly evocative, and wanting to go there make it easier.

Omega can just access other's memories of places and feelings and either stimulate those or emulate them (probably the latter) and if she's able to make physical contact Omega can tag along. It's like shoving someone off a cliff but grabbing onto them before they're out of reach, and letting them drag you off as well.

One would think that Antimony can just follow Anthony to wherever he's at now... but it appears to be the case that bwipping is harder for her than Omega and Omega is at least periodically monitoring Antimony's mind. Omega can just bwip Anthony away again, perhaps to harder and harder places for Antimony to get to, and otherwise will be f'ing up all Antimony's s until she's sure Antimony has permanently given up on trying to end the distortion... which is to say, indefinitely.
[edit] I should add there's nothing preventing Kat from bwipping except Kat, which I think may be a formidable barrier. If Kat doesn't understand how it works she might not be able to summon the mental flexibility to do it. I think Antimony can coach her through it, but that'd be even slower than Antimony bwipping and as we've seen that's slower than Omega can bwip people away. However, if Kat can pick up on the trick they can double-team her. Omega can't be in two places at once. If Kat can't pick up on the trick... they'll have to change tactics. [/edit]

Also: I hypothesize that Omega holding onto people physically is a crutch. She can probably learn to bwip herself and other people without doing without that.

[Runningflame]

Suggestion: the girls should go find Marcia, who is a bit of a kidnapping expert herself.

[Gemminie]

As telegraphed, Omega BWIPs away with Anja and Don, and Kat's understandably going "Hey, where are you going with my parents?" Annie is frustrated, and Kat is upset and confused. Annie explains Omega in the most basic terms possible and confirms that both their parents' new address is 123 Secret Lane, Omegaville, Distorted Gunnerkrigg Court, Pocket Dimension, Earth-sorta.

Kat, understandably, has many questions. Why Annie didn't tell her earlier is easily answerable – it literally just happened. Why Omega needs their parents is not fully clear, actually – why exactly does she need to go to secret Court places that only the adults know about? Kat's confused about whether they're still in the Court, which makes sense, since she's been at her workshop since the distortion began; she doesn't know what it's like out in the weeds. And why Annie's clothes are burned is probably because she's been connecting to the Ether to transport around, and all her Ether powers are fire-related.

But is there another reason why Annie's clothes are burned? Maybe it has some other meaning? Is it possible that she's been taxing her inner fire elemental and it's having consequences? Or, well, it could just be that she's panicked and upset and not being careful about what gets burned and what doesn't, and her clothes are the acceptable loss. It's better than burning Renard or Kat.

Post 1000!

[novia]

Is this the first time Antimony has sworn?

[lurkerbot]

Aug 2, 2024 23:19:20 GMT novia said:

Is this the first time Antimony has sworn?

No (and there may be another time or two that I don't readily recall).

[Igniz]

"And why are you all burned?"
That's what we all want to know, Kat.

[silicondream]

Aug 2, 2024 8:13:13 GMT arf said:

(Come on, Kat: Annie has only just found out about Omega herself.)

Aug 2, 2024 19:07:26 GMT Gemminie said:

Kat, understandably, has many questions. Why Annie didn't tell her earlier is easily answerable – it literally just happened.

Not so. Omega revealed herself to Annie back when they found Robot, and then after rejoining the other NPs they had a long-ass conversation within eyeshot of Kat. Annie could have tipped Kat off then, or had Renard do it, but she didn't.

Of course she wasn't expecting Omega to suddenly teleport them to Tony's neighborhood at the end of that conversation--but she should have been expecting that, since Omega had already flashily demonstrated her bwipping skillz en route to Robot.

[pyradonis]

Kat in panel six: "I don't have a big nose, do I?"

[TBeholder]

The next thing to do is… go warn Eglamore.
Which is when Omega discovers that jumping already spooked people with good reaction is hard mode of this game.
And that whatever little inhibitions Irda has don’t include anything that would make her hesitate before knocking out a strange girl who just appears out of nowhere and immediately gets grabby.

[maxptc]

Aug 2, 2024 8:44:37 GMT Eily said:

I don't really understand the whole disappearing thing. At first I thought the teleportation thing was about remembering places, but it clearly works with people too, couldn't just Kat do it again?
Even if it only works once, surely she could do it with her mom now that she did with her father

Adding on to this, can't the adults just leave wherever they are being taken to? Unless they listen to Omega and agree with her or somthing, I don't get how kidnapping can be a good plan if remembering can trigger it for anyone...

[mturtle7]

Aug 3, 2024 6:41:10 GMT silicondream said:

Aug 2, 2024 8:13:13 GMT arf said:

(Come on, Kat: Annie has only just found out about Omega herself.)

Aug 2, 2024 19:07:26 GMT Gemminie said:

Kat, understandably, has many questions. Why Annie didn't tell her earlier is easily answerable – it literally just happened.

Not so. Omega revealed herself to Annie back when they found Robot, and then after rejoining the other NPs they had a long-ass conversation within eyeshot of Kat. Annie could have tipped Kat off then, or had Renard do it, but she didn't.

Of course she wasn't expecting Omega to suddenly teleport them to Tony's neighborhood at the end of that conversation--but she should have been expecting that, since Omega had already flashily demonstrated her bwipping skillz en route to Robot.

It seems more than a little unfair to say that Annie "should have been expecting that", not in the least because she had no idea in the slightest who Omega was until the start of Chapter 94, and thus can quite reasonably say she had NO IDEA what to expect from the strange mystery girl whose entire existence made no sense based on what Annie knew about the "Omega Device" and Zimmy. Plus, while Omega might have been a bit erratic when Annie first tried to confront her, she seemed to calm down very shortly afterwards and seemed very willing to take Annie wherever she wanted to go (and nowhere else). Her suddenly bwipping them away in the middle of a casual conversation wasn't actually that predictable (for Annie, anyway)!

Also, while it's not 100% clear from the way the comic is paced, I'm pretty sure that Annie has actually been in CONTINUOUS conversation with people who urgently needed to be talked to since the start of Chapter 93. First there was Shadow telling her about his problem en route to Robot, then Robot had a metric ton of nonsense she & Shadow & Omega needed to sort out, then she had to listen to Omega contextualize her earth-shattering revelation en route back to Kat's lab, where Shadow and Robot promptly started monopolizing Kat's attention (background of panel 4 in that page) while Omega kept going on and on about her confusing backstory, THEN that led directly to Annie having to sit down with her dad and explain why they were suddenly in his house and what was going on in general...and that pretty much leads right into her dad getting kidnapped, and where we are now.

Heck, in general, please just keep in mind - our poor protagonist has basically been working around the clock without a break for 6 straight chapters, so cut her some slack!

[imaginaryfriend]

Aug 3, 2024 23:14:15 GMT maxptc said:

[C]an't the adults just leave wherever they are being taken to? Unless they listen to Omega and agree with her or somthing, I don't get how kidnapping can be a good plan if remembering can trigger it for anyone...

Being somewhere else in the distortion by accident is one thing; there's a trick to being an elsewhere on purpose.  If you don't know it, you're stuck.  You can move within the scenes inside the distortion but your movement isn't "real" as Antimony found out.  I guess it's like being in a low-speed fender-bender where your car won't work afterwards; if you don't know what a fuel cutoff switch is or where it is then you're stuck.  The fact that your car is actually fine is irrelevant.  If you've got the owner's manual then you can read it but it'll take a while to figure things out and get yourself unstuck.  I'm unsure how much time has actually passed or if what Antimony's been experiencing is any indicator how much time it's been for others but it probably hasn't been that long.  She did some wandering, changed clothes, maybe some other stuff.  Maybe it's been a couple hours?

Also we don't know what people farther away from the center of the distortion experienced. Some people may not even be aware they're stuck.  Anthony was probably in his house and I guess decided to stay there.  The Donlans may not have been as close to the coast (and to the Star Ocean) as Anthony was but were likely indoors. They may not have seen the horizon of the event approach as the distortion formed and if they did it may have been much less distinct.  It's possible they weren't treated to the same vista Antimony was after formation. Maybe Anja felt something but didn't realize how strong the distortion was, or maybe they didn't notice anything at all and they just continued puttering around the house at first.  On the other hand, if they did see the same overlapping realities they might have immediately figured out they were in a distortion, perhaps found themselves in danger, and chose to move to their old vacation site right away.  Or maybe they bounced as practice or for kicks.  They didn't have much motive to immediately move on from there so they may have been there a while.  

To be fair if I was a Court person and I was either at my desk, in my lab, or kicking back at home, and a distortion happened my first thought wouldn't be how do I get to the time I toured Fort Knox that candy store I loved as a kid or how do I fix the distortion.  I'd probably think, "Hm, are they doing something with the Star Ocean?" and grab my phone and check my messages.  Assuming I couldn't find any info I might go back to work/chores.  Of course if I was suddenly in a hellscape being chased by monsters I would be very interested in being elsewhere but might not have time to think about technique.  

[itrogash]

Did anybody noticed that Kat called Omega "lady" ? Omega looks more or less Kat's age so I don't see why she would describe her as lady. Does Kat see her differently to everyone else?

[imaginaryfriend]

Aug 4, 2024 18:18:09 GMT itrogash said:

Did anybody noticed that Kat called Omega "lady" ? Omega looks more or less Kat's age so I don't see why she would describe her as lady. Does Kat see her differently to everyone else?

Omega does look like she's adult-sized. The first panel of #2903, the last panel of #2929 and the second to last panel in #2953 shows how she's taller than Antimony while elsewhere other panels have regularly downplayed the height difference. In closeups Omega does look a bit older to me, though not as old as the kids' parents; I think Omega's Noob bod is probably modeled after Omega somewhere from her late teens to mid-twenties, though maybe as late as her late twenties.  That'd make sense to me, as that'd be the height of her youth; if Omega was designing her own body she'd probably choose this.  Kat's really forgiving, Omega may have this body in the distortion because it's the body she will eventually have.

[ctso74]

Apparently, Kat isn't aware the Burnhemian fashion trend.

[silicondream]

Aug 4, 2024 1:53:15 GMT mturtle7 said:

It seems more than a little unfair to say that Annie "should have been expecting that", not in the least because she had no idea in the slightest who Omega was until the start of Chapter 94, and thus can quite reasonably say she had NO IDEA what to expect from the strange mystery girl whose entire existence made no sense based on what Annie knew about the "Omega Device" and Zimmy. Plus, while Omega might have been a bit erratic when Annie first tried to confront her, she seemed to calm down very shortly afterwards and seemed very willing to take Annie wherever she wanted to go (and nowhere else).

OK, so she only attacks people and chain-teleports them all over the place sometimes. That still warrants caution, you know? Especially when she's already declared herself Omega, someone who can reasonably be assumed to be cooperating with the Court.

Also, while it's not 100% clear from the way the comic is paced, I'm pretty sure that Annie has actually been in CONTINUOUS conversation with people who urgently needed to be talked to since the start of Chapter 93. First there was Shadow telling her about his problem en route to Robot, then Robot had a metric ton of nonsense she & Shadow & Omega needed to sort out, then she had to listen to Omega contextualize her earth-shattering revelation en route back to Kat's lab, where Shadow and Robot promptly started monopolizing Kat's attention (background of panel 4 in that page) while Omega kept going on and on about her confusing backstory

Omega's the single most important Court employee they've ever met, the potential key to all the Court's plans, a probable ally to Court leadership, and also the person/machine that Kat's been trying to track down for months while riskily augmenting herself to make the search easier. And now she's here, with teleport powers, masquerading as a New Person and spying on Kat for who knows how long? I think that's sufficiently high-priority to interrupt the Shadow/Robot drama debrief.

And it's not even the protagonists' first time for this particular scenario! They just dealt with Loup's infiltration of the New People, and developed, practiced and executed a plan to neutralize him in a few seconds if he made a wrong move. Annie and Renard had Omega pegged as suspicious for a few chapters before she actually named herself; there's no reason for them to hesitate to tip Kat off once they were back at her workshop.

Annie wouldn't even have had to interrupt Omega's ramble to do it. She could have stood there and listened politely and let Renard slink over to Kat and go "pssst, that person's actually the Omega device." Then Kat could deploy whatever ridiculous surveillance and tracking tech she's invented in the last five minutes. Might not work, given the distortion, but way better than doing nothing.

THEN that led directly to Annie having to sit down with her dad and explain why they were suddenly in his house and what was going on in general...and that pretty much leads right into her dad getting kidnapped, and where we are now.

Oh, I don't have any complaints about Annie's behavior later on. She had no reason to think Omega would grab Tony, and instantly attacking her in response would be out of character. Only Wisps put Annie in instant-death mode.

Heck, in general, please just keep in mind - our poor protagonist has basically been working around the clock without a break for 6 straight chapters, so cut her some slack!

Pretty sure Kat's been doing the same--probably for 10 straight chapters, cuz she's Kat--and her parents just got kidnapped. So I'm cutting her some slack on being annoyed with Annie over this.