[3020] "Just call me Zimmy, Coyote."

[imaginaryfriend]

Even better than backstory, it's a distortion-powered school arc! Now we know why the distortion's lasted this long, it'll take a while for Coyote to get bored here!

Like Coyote, I'm going to keep calling her Zeta.

[philman]

Oh god, high school. Annie was right when she said Zimmy was in torment.

Then again, this is likely the closest to a "normal life" that Zimmy has ever experienced, so maybe she is happy where she is, despite having to hang around with the jerk Coyote

[Corvo]

Her personality now reminds me of Annie a long time ago.

[csj]

he's not like all of the other nobodies at school

[imaginaryfriend]

Nov 15, 2024 8:09:11 GMT philman said:

Oh god, high school. Annie was right when she said Zimmy was in torment.

These problems matter.

[aggadahGothic]

With a bottle of hair dye, she and Antimony could be twins. The long-coveted Zimmy=Annie theory finds new ground, or perhaps I am simply succumbing to the enthralling call of madness.

(Is Zimmy so much more agreeable when not under the effects of Zimmychosis? Or have she and Coyote suffered many, many quotidian days together, in which she might come to begrudgingly tolerate him? The questions never cease.)

[speedwell]

Clues for the culture-challenged among us (my fellow Americans, cough cough) - that is an upper-middle-class city neighborhood; the buildings are late copies (1950s to 1970s I'd say) of Victorian row houses and many or most have had doors and windows replaced and/or added with modern low-maintenance double glazing in vinyl frames in the 90s. From Coyote's vaguely Indian/Middle Eastern assumed look and the public school uniforms (private school to us Yanks) and backpacks, I'd say the south of England, even London, around the turn of the century or later. Though that's hardly prognostication; it could be any not-deprived area in the so-called British Isles from Derry to Aberdeen - but that kind of house front specifically I have seen in Dublin, London, and other major cities. Birmingham, why not.

[speedwell]

Nov 15, 2024 8:54:50 GMT aggadahGothic said:

With a bottle of hair dye, she and Antimony could be twins. The long-coveted Zimmy=Annie theory finds new ground, or perhaps I am simply succumbing to the enthralling call of madness.

Mayyyybe. I have always noticed the resemblance in the back of my mind but chalked it up to "typical British girl of unremarkable heritage tends to a certain look".

[aggadahGothic]

Nov 15, 2024 9:02:49 GMT speedwell said:

Clues for the culture-challenged among us (my fellow Americans, cough cough) - that is an upper-middle-class city neighborhood

I had wondered about the terraced houses as a resident of the second America (Australia). I thought they could merely have been workers' houses from Birmingham's industrial past. Upper middle class is not particularly my image of Zimmy...

[bicarbonat]

I love the recurring visual idea that Coyote has these clear tells – (ex: today's re-skinned J. Elfsberry) – not because he isn't clever enough, but because he's just enormously into the Game of it all.

[shadow3]

High school is like Dante's Inferno except with teenagers.

[csj]

Nov 15, 2024 8:09:11 GMT philman said:

Oh god, high school. Annie was right when she said Zimmy was in torment.

Then again, this is likely the closest to a "normal life" that Zimmy has ever experienced, so maybe she is happy where she is, despite having to hang around with the jerk Coyote

imagine being trapped by an omnipresent biocomputer inside a birmingham community school with an indigenous american god

happens every tuesday

[blahzor]

It's gunnerkrigg's adaptation of "Skins"

[blahzor]

Nov 15, 2024 8:09:11 GMT philman said:

Oh god, high school. Annie was right when she said Zimmy was in torment.

Then again, this is likely the closest to a "normal life" that Zimmy has ever experienced, so maybe she is happy where she is, despite having to hang around with the jerk Coyote

Don't think she ever wanted to be normal but different so she can be happy with Gamma somewhere

[hoob]

Nov 15, 2024 9:45:05 GMT shadow3 said:

High school is like Dante's Inferno except with teenagers.

High school is hell, except they call you virgin, not Virgil

[silicondream]

Zimmy's looking a little, uh, cubist in that bottom panel.

[imaginaryfriend]

Nov 15, 2024 9:02:49 GMT speedwell said:

Clues for the culture-challenged among us (my fellow Americans, cough cough) - that is an upper-middle-class city neighborhood; the buildings are late copies (1950s to 1970s I'd say) of Victorian row houses and many or most have had doors and windows replaced and/or added with modern low-maintenance double glazing in vinyl frames in the 90s. From Coyote's vaguely Indian/Middle Eastern assumed look and the public school uniforms (private school to us Yanks) and backpacks, I'd say the south of England, even London, around the turn of the century or later. Though that's hardly prognostication; it could be any not-deprived area in the so-called British Isles from Derry to Aberdeen - but that kind of house front specifically I have seen in Dublin, London, and other major cities. Birmingham, why not.

[rant]I'd forgotten until just reading these posts that the bathroom in the townhouse I spent my earliest years in was at one time carpeted. It was built right before the war boom and sported the best technology, an oil-fired boiler (circa 1930) and gold-painted radiators in every important room. If the UK had two settings, our tapwater had three: too cold, too hot, and way too hot. It was great for washing dishes and clothes but the thermostat tended to wander. Mom used to gauge if I needed a shower or bath or not by how much the red marks on my skin had faded and I didn't realize that was abnormal until group gym showers in middle school. The vanity/med cabinet was blissfully basic and included a razor slot. The bathroom floor had wide black and white checkered tiles and a claw-footed tub for a showerbath. That damn tub was probably 1920s or earlier going by its size, old stock sourced by the builder to save money, and the narrow curved sides were a fking menace. My right temple aches thinking about all the times I slipped while showering and knocked my head against the wall. Mid-1970s-ish my mother had the tiles torn up in favor of hideous pink shag carpet to match the pink walls. That was the fashion of the time, I remember places like libraries and dinner theaters having carpet not only on floors but also on walls, sometimes in multiple layers forming 3d patterns/shapes. They were often in pastels and earth tones and they were awful. Thankfully, that tub was replaced with an alcove type that was a little safer and not a weird color. Because of the 1970s energy crisis we got new insulation around the same time; to save on heating expenses no steam was allowed to escape (nor toilet smell nor radon). You could either shower with the window wide open or suffer the sauna. Surprisingly the water dripping off the walls wasn't good for the shag carpet and it started to develop mold; mom held out to 1980-ish before having it removed and tiles put back in. That didn't solve the mold problem, mold stayed a problem until she got rid of the house a decade or two back, but made it better.[/rant]

[fia]

It's interesting how we are all reacting like, either this is Hellish Hell, or this is something Zimmy may want. What if it's both?

I think about how some schizophrenics describe what it's like being on intense levels of antipsychotics or how certain people with bipolar describe being on intense levels of mood stabilizing meds.* On the outside you appear more "normal" but inside perhaps it feels a bit like going catatonic or dissociating from yourself. The Annie face-washing page from The Tree is not that different under this interpretation than Zeta washing her face; when Annie shows up with cropped hair and a hospital gown it's the first part of a longer sequence of pretending to be normal when really you're experiencing intense levels of dissociation. Also see the Broken Man caught in his mind cage.
Dissociation and the inability to interact in an ideal way with the sensible world and real others is a theme with Tom. The ether (via Zimmy or Coyote or Loup) can manifest the mental health issues in a concrete and visible way –– but what does it mean when what the ether manifests something that "looks normal," when in fact everything is bananas?? Sometimes that is, as some have already suggested, perhaps the most telling sign that something is wrong.

For example: Zimmy's entire etheric life-force is being sapped by the Star Ocean. Maybe she's experiencing what it's like to die.



(*My hope and current understanding is that medical treatments are better and kinder in developed countries, with some notable exceptions, and this kind of thing is rarer now, but in the 70s and 80s, like what that carpeted bathroom reminds me of, way more common).

[Gemini Jim]

Nov 15, 2024 9:54:05 GMT csj said:

Nov 15, 2024 8:09:11 GMT philman said:

Oh god, high school. Annie was right when she said Zimmy was in torment.

Then again, this is likely the closest to a "normal life" that Zimmy has ever experienced, so maybe she is happy where she is, despite having to hang around with the jerk Coyote

imagine being trapped by an omnipresent biocomputer inside a birmingham community school with an indigenous american god

happens every tuesday

No, it happens on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.


*cough* sorry.


in any case, it doesn't seem like Zimmy is self-aware of being trapped inside a Lotus-Eater machine.

maybe this is like a Star Trek episode, where in the back of her head, she's vaguely aware of something wrong or she's going to "wake up" soon.


or maybe we're seeing things In Media Res, where she's been there for a while (or thinks she's been there for a while, due to Distortion time dilation) and had a chance to get used to being trapped in a Teenage Dream/ Teenage Wasteland with Coyote.

[Sky Schemer]

Zimmy is wearing her backpack on one shoulder, which is setting herself up for sciatica and other spinal issues later in life.

Coyote understands the importance of wearing both straps.

[storyteller]

I'm suddenly flashbacking to what Zimmy's words in regards to Gamma were a long long time ago was.

Destroy the world and herself if Gamma asked.

www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=462

If the world is a fake lotos eater scenario - well I can actually see Gamma asking.

But I have to agree - this is stable for Zimmy but she's not happy. We have occasionally seen happy Zimmy - wanting to chase Spiders after Goodnight Gamma chapter and her interruption of Pat when there was two Annies.

There is normal and there is happy.

Given that Zimmy and Gamma came off as content with their relationship with the tricky bit being Zimmy's powers... I don't think Zimmy particularly cares about normal. Stable power set is the only "normality" she actually wanted I think.

[yellowb]

Nov 15, 2024 15:46:02 GMT fia said:

It's interesting how we are all reacting like, either this is Hellish Hell, or this is something Zimmy may want. What if it's both?

Or neither.

[TBeholder]

That’s a date.
I don’t even watch much anime, but…

[Gemminie]

Zimmy has put on a matching navy blazer and some black shoes and emerged from what appears to be her home, carrying a mauve backpack. As she locks the front door, another person appears, someone in a navy suit and tie with black hair, carrying a blue backpack. We see a facial close-up of this person; it appears to be a young man with red markings above his eyes and blue markings below, and pointed ears, with an orange left earring. He addresses Zimmy as "Zeta," to which she responds that he should just call her Zimmy. Oh, and she calls him Coyote. He smiles, but she doesn't appear pleased to see him.

This is looking like a school-based manga, with Zimmy playing the tsundere role. This seems to be how the distortion is presenting itself to Zimmy and Coyote. How odd. Did Coyote choose this scenario, or did Zimmy, or ... Lana said that she was a big reader of manga. How aware is Zimmy of what's going on? Does this imply that Lana is around somewhere? Are we going to see her eventually? Is Loup here? Are Loup and Lana a couple somewhere? And where is Gamma?

I wish I could speculate about this. This is very weird. Fortunately, "very weird" is what I like about GKC. Very weird, but it makes sense when things start falling into place. 

[jasmijn]

Oh, it's that guy.

[hoob]

Have we ever seen hard a solid white background between panels like this? I think the closest we've seen is Chapter 59 and this page from Chapter 26.

[imaginaryfriend]

Nov 15, 2024 21:02:21 GMT hoob said:

Have we ever seen hard a solid white background between panels like this? I think the closest we've seen is Chapter 59 and this page from Chapter 26.

You mean not counting extra comics? Let's see... The City Face filler comics and puzzles were off-white between panels (unless my screen's off). That's the closest I can think of, though thematically I'm reminded of this page. The character poll was blue tones around the borders of panels where panels were needed.

That's all I got.

[ophidiophile]

Nov 15, 2024 8:09:11 GMT philman said:

Oh god, high school. Annie was right when she said Zimmy was in torment.

Then again, this is likely the closest to a "normal life" that Zimmy has ever experienced, so maybe she is happy where she is, despite having to hang around with the jerk Coyote

There's an anime called "Angel Beats" that takes place in a high school that is the afterlife for recently deceased.

The distortion was created when Coyote and Zimmy finally met.  Each has their own distortion field that changes reality, and together it created a reality where they are friends?  They probably aren't even aware of the conflict between Omega and Annie's group.  I wonder if Omega and Annie and the others can even intrude in this "high school", or whether they'll be forced to conform to the reality that's been created.  Of course, GK takes place in a high school, but maybe this high school is more normal, though I can't imagine either Coyote or Zimmy know what a normal high school is like.

[frogspawned]

That Coyote,
Always so formal.

[laaaa]

The real question is whether distortion!Lana is being courted by both anthropomorphic versions of Coyote and Ysegrin, or whether she pines after her before-split Loup, or whether all three entities (Coyote, Ysegrin, Loup) are separately present in the distortion.
Or whether Ysegrin and Coyote can merge at will into Loup to battle eldrich abominations, power ranger style.