[3023]Morning, Lana!

[yellowb]

We've seen pipe smoking in the comic (Don Donlan), but is this the first time we see cigarette smoking? Makes sense that it's Coyote who's doing it.

www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=3023

Lana is pointing at, and Zimmy is turning her head to see - who?

[blahzor]

Site not loading for me so can't see page

[philman]

Is it not down for anyone else? Can't get to the website at all to see the new page

[aggadahGothic]

Jerrek and Lana are definitely not aware of what is happening, then... We have not seen this anywhere else in the distortion, so perhaps they are not actually present.

The site was down briefly but appears to be up again.

[blahzor]

Coyote smoking because Y's cant

[mochakimono]

What's the symbol on the gate in Panel 6?

[Eily]

So maybe in the end the reason Annie gets to kill Loup, and Kate ends Zimmy is because they realize that they get to linger as normal people in the distortion or the new world

[imaginaryfriend]

Nov 22, 2024 10:40:02 GMT mochakimono said:

What's the symbol on the gate in Panel 6?

Looks like just the letter "S" to me.

[rabbit]

So Coyote is a smoker, huh? 
rabbit wonders if that moss ogre is still smoking, too.

[imaginaryfriend]

It took me a good while to find a similar pose to be sure but this Lana is more thicc than Lana should be. She's acting about as a Lana would in this context but she doesn't look the same. Same goes for Jerrek. Coyote could always look like whatever he wants and tobacco has importance in some native American spiritual contexts so we can't draw too much from him looking the way he does or smoking, other than doing so as an act of rebellion would be double-sweet for him. Zeta isn't looking much like Zeta normally would and she is acting very differently (Being civil? Going to school? Looking at people in the eye? Washing her face unprompted? Friendly elbow? Holy crap!) yet she (and Coyote) do seem to know they're not in regular-reality. They're using their "real" names. At least some of those things would seem to be unnecessary and/or unlikely if this was just a trope-mashup so I think it's safe to say yep we're in someone's memories and it's not Zeta's. Seeing as it's a normie school scenario this is likely the memory of someone from the Court. My guess is that this is something like a semi-lucid dream; the characters "know" each other and what they should do, and there's some compulsion involved in what they do though there's probably a great deal of maneuvering room. As things play out what they know may prove to be more spotty than it should be and the limits on what they can do will probably loosen (not sure Coyote had any to start with but whatevs). Zeta would typically get stuck in the main character's role and she probably is but that's less sure given the unusual circumstances. We may yet see the main character appear, but I suspect she already has and it's Zeta.

[Corvo]

Smoking by itself is bad enough, but around children? I kind of hate Coyote now, even if none of that is real. Bad doggie! Bad!

[Corvo]

And now I want a side comic that is entirely about this gang, in this world.

[morrahadesigns]

Nov 22, 2024 13:59:32 GMT Corvo said:

And now I want a side comic that is entirely about this gang, in this world.

Same. After all of the constant intrigue, and drama, and upsets (don't get me wrong, I love the comic) I kind of just want to linger in this happy dream for a while. 

[ctso74]

Nov 22, 2024 10:40:02 GMT mochakimono said:

What's the symbol on the gate in Panel 6?

It sort of looks like a globe to me.

Hopefully, Zimmy will turn to see Gamma on Monday.
It could always be someone else though. Ysengrin being the British equivalent of a PE teacher?

[Gemminie]

Lana appears, and smiles as she poses in an oddly exaggerated posture, leaning forward with arms straight back. Zimmy greets her with a smile, so we definitely know something weird is going on here.

In a two-panel column of frames, Zimmy says they have a few minutes before "registration," and Coyote laughingly says Jerrek needs a "helping hand."

In a two-panel row of frames, Jerrek and Lana see each other, smile, and blush; Lana waves.

The final row has three panels and is without dialogue. The first panel is shown from high above; students are filing in through the gates. In the second panel, Coyote smokes a cigarette (of course he's the bad kid who smokes and is too cool for homework) while Jerrek frantically copies homework (presumably Zimmy's, as she said earlier that she'd let him, and she's the one who said they had a few minutes). But in the final panel of the row and page, Lana is smiling and pointing off camera at something/someone behind Zimmy's back, and Zimmy is turning her head to see.

What/who will we see? Probably Gamma, the only person unaccounted for who's known to have been in this area when the distortion began, unless this is the moment for Annie or Kat to show up. Or this scenario's version of Renard. Or Omega? Unlikely; she said she couldn't see Zimmy, meaning she can't travel there, and she has no reason to disturb this scenario.

Tom's note is "Registration is like roll call." What "registration" would mean to me, being from the US, is what happens on the first day of the term when you sign up for classes and make your class schedule for the coming term. But it doesn't seem as if that's what it means here. Is this a British usage? Or is Tom saying that the only people in this scenario are those connected with this school?

[Runningflame]

Nov 22, 2024 13:07:03 GMT rabbit said:

So Coyote is a smoker, huh? 
rabbit wonders if that moss ogre is still smoking, too.

Haha, burn!

Nov 22, 2024 13:53:19 GMT Corvo said:

Smoking by itself is bad enough, but around children? I kind of hate Coyote now, even if none of that is real. Bag doggie! Bad!

It wouldn't be the worst thing he's done around children.

[Gemini Jim]

Can't really say too much about this page. Still can't tell if Lana is cosplaying or if she actually believes that she is a character in a school romcom (or even worse, a character in a webcomic).

As a Mirkin, I immediately interpreted "registration" to mean that they are new students in this holodeck simulation Distortion world.

But upon further reflection, around here you would do that sort of thing before you showed up in full school uniform. And you normally wouldn't have homework yet.

[speedwell]

"Registration" here in the UK and Ireland is when the teacher marks you present in the class register, my fellow Americans   It is "taking attendance".

My Northern-Irish-public-schooled husband says that enrollment ("enrolment", here) on the first day of school is called "admission". We are meant, then, to understand this is after the first day.

Also, I used to go hang out with the beedees and the wastoids out back of my American high school when there was such a thing as a "designated smoking area". I did not smoke, but I was going on record as not being the kiss-up all the teachers thought I was. So much for being the official "peer counselor", haha. (Beedees = BDs = "behavioural disorders", my droogies.)

[fia]

So, characters we have yet to see since the distortion? "Zimmy, Coyote, Loup" are all hidden from Omega, so who else is?
Gamma is the obvious missing piece. If "Zeta is an etheric generator, made stable by Coyote's influence," Gamma might not be necessary for Zimmy to function anymore, especially if her energy is being zapped. Is Zeta's heart "the distorted heart"? Has she been made to forget Gamma?
Or: if Gamma is there with her, is Annie's attempt to stop the distortion misguided after all? What a weird twist that would be. 


And what is the thing that Zimmy "did" that Omega knows??? I've been turning my head around about it. Could it be as bad as what the Court did to Jeanne? Worse? Or just something that haunts her a lot –– like I dunno, accidentally killing a sibling?

[pyradonis]

Nov 22, 2024 10:12:50 GMT aggadahGothic said:

Jerrek and Lana are definitely not aware of what is happening, then... We have not seen this anywhere else in the distortion, so perhaps they are not actually present.

They could still just be very into playing their roles., though I agree it appears less probable.

[arkadi]

"Zimmy" is looking more and more like Annie and that definitely can't be a coincidence. I'm calling shenanigans. Distortion shenanigans.

[storyteller]

Nov 22, 2024 18:37:34 GMT fia said:

So, characters we have yet to see since the distortion? "Zimmy, Coyote, Loup" are all hidden from Omega, so who else is?
Gamma is the obvious missing piece. If "Zeta is an etheric generator, made stable by Coyote's influence," Gamma might not be necessary for Zimmy to function anymore, especially if her energy is being zapped. Is Zeta's heart "the distorted heart"? Has she been made to forget Gamma?
Or: if Gamma is there with her, is Annie's attempt to stop the distortion misguided after all? What a weird twist that would be. 


And what is the thing that Zimmy "did" that Omega knows??? I've been turning my head around about it. Could it be as bad as what the Court did to Jeanne? Worse? Or just something that haunts her a lot –– like I dunno, accidentally killing a sibling?

Honestly given the time wimey stuff with Zimmy I'm wondering if the answer to what she did is make Gamma forget her. Especially if she thinks Gamma would be better off without her.

Zimmy has proven to be quite capable of hiding the fact she's believed to know that Kat was going to kill her for years. And uh acting merely grumpy and uncomfortable not "facing your future killer".


I can absolutely see her knowing that her friendship/relationship with Gamma would end with betrayal and not saying anything about it

[speedwell]

They are only playing like it's well into the class year. Why do I say that? Poor woobie Jerrek has been cursed by the Author to have that dream where you show up to school unprepared for a class you forgot you enrolled in and have been absent from for three weeks, wanna bet.

Where is Gamma? Somewhere, sure, but not here. Because the scenario is a "what if it had all been perfectly normal" one, and Gamma is part of the "desperate need" scenario.

[Sky Schemer]

Nov 22, 2024 19:41:19 GMT speedwell said:

 Poor woobie Jerrek has been cursed by the Author to have that dream where you show up to school unprepared for a class you forgot you enrolled in and have been absent from for three weeks, wanna bet.

This is pretty much Loup in a nutshell. Completely unprepared for...everything.

[aggadahGothic]

Nov 22, 2024 15:39:56 GMT Gemminie said:

Tom's note is "Registration is like roll call." What "registration" would mean to me, being from the US, is what happens on the first day of the term when you sign up for classes and make your class schedule for the coming term. But it doesn't seem as if that's what it means here. Is this a British usage? Or is Tom saying that the only people in this scenario are those connected with this school?

In Britain, attendance is recorded once in the morning and once in the afternoon, and this is called registration, the 'register' being the list of present students. (It was quite confusing at first, as in Australia, the roll is marked at the beginning of every single period, in a largely ad hoc manner. I suppose we are quite provincial.)

[imaginaryfriend]

I went to a rather unprovincial grade and high school in the USA and for the life of me I can't recall a single instance where the words registration, attendance, roll call, enrollment, or the phrase "taking attendance" was ever used. Everyone simply presented the paperwork required and acknowledged their presence in first period when appropriate. Thinking back on it, it was an escalator system kindergarden-12th grade (multiple feeder schools passing kids on to the high school) and the formalities were so ingrained that there was no label needed for route activities because after that many years there was nothing to discuss and no thought involved.

In college, though, yes there was application, acceptance, then registration on the first day and some professors took attendance (by which I mean they assigned TAs to do so).

[TBeholder]

Also, we see another redhead (who isn’t Lana, because we see her back without backpack) talking to someone with long black hair.

Nov 22, 2024 17:14:53 GMT Gemini Jim said:

Can't really say too much about this page. Still can't tell if Lana is cosplaying or if she actually believes that she is a character in a school romcom (or even worse, a character in a webcomic).

Maybe she hopes she is a character in a school romcom. As opposed to being recently devoured,

[blahzor]

Nov 23, 2024 2:14:24 GMT TBeholder said:

Also, we see another redhead (who isn’t Lana, because we see her back without backpack) talking to someone with long black hair.

Nov 22, 2024 17:14:53 GMT Gemini Jim said:

Can't really say too much about this page. Still can't tell if Lana is cosplaying or if she actually believes that she is a character in a school romcom (or even worse, a character in a webcomic).

Maybe she hopes she is a character in a school romcom. As opposed to being recently devoured,

Turns out it's just Cookie and some other woman

[dramastix]

Apropos of nothing, I'm wondering if this is the end of the latest book. This book started 19 chapters ago, and Tom does like to end with a complete scene change on occasion.

Edited: I forgot about the break before Reconfiguration. Still. It's been a while.

[speedwell]

Nov 22, 2024 19:41:19 GMT speedwell said:

Where is Gamma? Somewhere, sure, but not here. 

Well, that did not age well.    Unless, of course, Gamma isn't here.