[2976] "I didn't think she would take him too!"

[imaginaryfriend]

She's actively trying to stop Antimony. Whoda thunk it?

[arf]

Kat's speech is the colour of the sky.

[Corvo]

They just look cooler like this, Kat.

[aggadahGothic]

This page does not give much new information -- nothing that was not surmisable already -- but seeing as there seems to be some confusion at the moment about what precisely is happening, it may be best to vicariously 'get up to speed' through Kat. At least she seems to be holding up well. (Too well, even.) Perhaps she will have a better plan for confronting dear Omega than Antimony. She is, after all, the only one who has yet defied Omega's foresight, despite Omega's focus on Antimony herself as the source of chaos.

(I am unsure if anyone has commented on it but: the faint blue and red haze applied atop the panels is interesting; it was present in Chapter 91 as well, in other colours too. It could merely be a way to visually distinguish these dream-like areas of the distortion, but perhaps it means something more particular. It often seems to emanate from the characters themselves, and Antimony and Kat's speech bubbles colours are a faint red and blue.)

[blahzor]

Aug 5, 2024 7:29:54 GMT Corvo said:

They just look cooler like this, Kat.

kat you just wasn't there for the ripped clothes era, this is my spin on it

[morrahadesigns]

Aug 5, 2024 8:23:33 GMT blahzor said:

Aug 5, 2024 7:29:54 GMT Corvo said:

They just look cooler like this, Kat.

kat you just wasn't there for the ripped clothes era, this is my spin on it

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if that did become a fashion statement. I knew people who deliberately destroyed their clothes so they could hold them together with safety pins because it looked "punk". 

[morrahadesigns]

Is Kat just handling everything well and focusing on one issue at a time to prevent overwhelming, or is she in shock and temporarily numb? Hmmmmmm

[arf]

I would just like to note that Tony Carver has now been present for half the comic.

(How did that happen?)

[pyradonis]

"And your clothes?"
"Oh... That is actually because of a little accident while trying to make myself a fried egg sandwich before coming to you."

[Gemini Jim]

Girls, pay attention to the wolf doll/ fox creature.


Meg is actively trying to prevent them from stopping her plans. And she probably has the predictive ability to figure out what they'll try to do next. That's the most important bit of information on this page.



Annie's fire problem, while interesting, is probably secondary. (It probably does have something to do with Annie's emotional state. In which case, she needs to calm down and think rationally about the problem?)

[Gemminie]

As usual I'm posting my description of and reactions to today's page without reading the forum comments first; I'll read them after.

So Annie starts to answer some of Kat's questions; they're remaining in the distortion's recreation of the place where Don and Anja got married for now. The bandaid on the back of Kat's neck is still present. Annie first explains that she thought at first Omega would be on their side (presumably in terms of restoring things to normal), but it turns out she wants the distortion to keep going forever.

Annie sits on the ground, allowing us to see more of the extent of the clothing damage she's been incurring. We're also seeing those occasional spots of color distortion that we've been seeing since the distortion began, though I've only been noticing them in natural environments rather than in the Court or Court-like areas. Annie explains that Omega took Tony in order to reach secret Court places that he knows about but the uninitiated don't (though she doesn't explain why Omega wants to do this – I doubt Annie knows the answer to that). She goes on to explain why she came to Kat to get help to find her dad. She didn't think Omega would take him too (what about Anja, Annie?). Renard adds that Omega's actively trying to stop them, which implies that Omega would probably have taken Don and Anja anyway even if Annie hadn't been trying to get to them.

Kat thinks for a moment, then asks about Annie's clothes (this question is lampshaded as humorous by having Kat's face drawn deformed, sort of a kaogei expression). Tom's comment, "Oh," is the same thing Annie says. Maybe she's going to explain. Or maybe the next page will start with Kat saying, "Oh, I understand."

My question is why Annie and Kat couldn't just try to get to any of their parents again. They're still out there. Or are they afraid that Omega has set traps, or that she'd threaten to harm them if they tried it? If so, though, that hasn't been suggested. They're just not thinking of that. It seems obvious, which makes it feel like an "idiot plot" (where a story couldn't happen unless the main character is an idiot, unable to realize something that's extremely obvious to the reader, etc. – then there's the "second order idiot plot," in which everyone in the entire society must be an idiot in order for the story to happen – basically a plot driven by contrived ignorance/stupidity) to just not have them think of it.

[mturtle7]

Aug 5, 2024 8:08:42 GMT aggadahGothic said:

This page does not give much new information -- nothing that was not surmisable already -- but seeing as there seems to be some confusion at the moment about what precisely is happening, it may be best to vicariously 'get up to speed' through Kat. At least she seems to be holding up well. (Too well, even.) Perhaps she will have a better plan for confronting dear Omega than Antimony. She is, after all, the only one who has yet defied Omega's foresight, despite Omega's focus on Antimony herself as the source of chaos.

(I am unsure if anyone has commented on it but: the faint blue and red haze applied atop the panels is interesting; it was present in Chapter 91 as well, in other colours too. It could merely be a way to visually distinguish these dream-like areas of the distortion, but perhaps it means something more particular. It often seems to emanate from the characters themselves, and Antimony and Kat's speech bubbles colours are a faint red and blue.)

Welcome to the forum, aggadahGothic! Always great to see new fans participating!

It took me a minute to recall what you meant by Kat "defying Omega's foresight", but then I remembered that all this stuff with Antimony is actually just because Kat made the Tik-toks to save her. Well, with the Norns' help, but still! In hindsight, it's actually pretty weird that Omega seemed to know that Kat's work was responsible for Annie's stubborn existence, but still fixated on Annie as the "point of chaos". Does she not understand the full extent of Kat's involvement? Is she dismissing Kat's work as being merely technology, which she can easily understand, rather than magic and/or empathy, which she's naturally challenged by? Or is she actually just deliberately downplaying her fear of/fascination with Kat, in order to decieve Antimony somehow? Time will tell, I guess...

Nobody's really been talking about the red and blue haze until now, I think, but I also just realized what it (probably) is - it's just the way the natural lighting looks when the sky is trying to be noon, early morning, dusk, and midnight at the same time!

Aug 5, 2024 15:50:29 GMT Gemminie said:

My question is why Annie and Kat couldn't just try to get to any of their parents again. They're still out there. Or are they afraid that Omega has set traps, or that she'd threaten to harm them if they tried it? If so, though, that hasn't been suggested. They're just not thinking of that. It seems obvious, which makes it feel like an "idiot plot" (where a story couldn't happen unless the main character is an idiot, unable to realize something that's extremely obvious to the reader, etc. – then there's the "second order idiot plot," in which everyone in the entire society must be an idiot in order for the story to happen – basically a plot driven by contrived ignorance/stupidity) to just not have them think of it.

My theory is that you can only travel directly to somebody in the distortion if you know both them and the place-memory where they're located through personal experience (or you're with somebody else who does). That would explain why Kat could get to where Donald & Anja were, but Annie couldn't - Kat even made a point of commenting on how she recognized the place they were in as soon as they bwipped there! And that's also why Kat & Annie can't get to wherever Omega took their parents - they know the people, but not the place-memory. Meanwhile, their parents haven't been able get directly to them, either, because they just...don't know that they can do that. Omega implied to Tony that she can travel through the distortion via other people's place-memories, but she didn't mention anything about concentrating on people to get to them.

One thing we haven't yet seen is what the heck happens when you try to concentrate on a person's memory, but they're in a place-memory that you're not familiar with. Given the normally chaotic and punishing nature of Zimmingham, I'd expect that you just get transported to a random unfamiliar place-memory, like how Annie & the NP ended up in Coyote's desert when fleeing towards a nondescript light. ...Maybe Annie DID try to get to Donny before trying Kat, and got dumped someplace which set her clothes on fire? If so, we'll probably find out next page.

[hoob]

The elephant in the room is that Annie told post-bwip Omega to go to hell, but thought too hard about it herself.

[aggadahGothic]

Aug 5, 2024 20:23:38 GMT mturtle7 said:

[...] Does she not understand the full extent of Kat's involvement? [...]

She seems to understand Kat's effects on causality more than we do. We have certainly seen how Kat's work 'reaches even [...] into the past', but into the 'future'? What does O. mean by that?

(O. tells Charles that her predictions will become 'less and less accurate', implying she can yet predict the future to an extent: I wonder whether she knows of something Kat will soon do; a vision perhaps parallel to Zimmy's vision of Kat killing her. Zimmy has in past suffered visions of things which were to occur in future to other people.)

[tibert]

Aug 5, 2024 13:01:34 GMT arf said:

I would just like to note that Tony Carver has now been present for half the comic.

(How did that happen?)

I still remember how this page whammed me.

When I try to remember at which point I began to read Gunnerkrigg Court, all I can tell is that it's must have been well before The Tree because I remember:
- how the forum was incensed at the time
- that I have been unaware of the Forum for quite a time, only of the temporary comments

(It's my curse about webcomics to be unable to remember where I finished binging and began to follow. In the case of GC, it's further muddled because I remember I didn't begin to follow the comic the first time I discovered it.)

Another count surprised me:
Kat and Paz has been have been dating for largely more than half the comic before breaking up.
Although this won't be true anymore after 165 pages and I expect the comic to last at least that long.

[Igniz]

Either Kat knows something Annie and us don't, or she cares less for her parents than she does for Annie's wardrobre.

[pyradonis]

Aug 7, 2024 5:57:33 GMT Igniz said:

Either Kat knows something Annie and us don't, or she cares less for her parents than she does for Annie's wardrobre.

Her parents let her fly down into the ravine on a self-built antigrav ship when she was 11 or 12, and were cool with her staying behind in a destroyed war zone when she was 15 or 16. Just assuming your family members can take care of themselves must be a Donlan thing.

[blahzor]

Aug 7, 2024 5:57:33 GMT Igniz said:

Either Kat knows something Annie and us don't, or she cares less for her parents than she does for Annie's wardrobre.

She knows her mom is basically a witch

[mturtle7]

Aug 7, 2024 13:20:15 GMT pyradonis said:

Aug 7, 2024 5:57:33 GMT Igniz said:

Either Kat knows something Annie and us don't, or she cares less for her parents than she does for Annie's wardrobre.

Her parents let her fly down into the ravine on a self-built antigrav ship when she was 11 or 12, and were cool with her staying behind in a destroyed war zone when she was 15 or 16. Just assuming your family members can take care of themselves must be a Donlan thing.

Parents from Court in general seem to have very much normalized a certain commitment to making their childrens' lives more independent so they can go off on their own interesting adventures (even if that means manufacturing such adventures artificially). I can only assume this is due to a) backlash against the authoritative Court ideals of safety through control and b) having read too much Harry Potter as children.