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You’d think given the trauma of finding out she was meant to record her mother and the knowledge the psychopomps have no interest in them, she’d have had a talk with Kat about the new people. But that would involve Annie being a main character and the resurrection of that whole defining yet ignored plot.
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Sep 8, 2023 13:10
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So is Lana's soul hanging around or what
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Sep 8, 2023 13:21
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Splicer posted:So is Lana's soul hanging around or what You'd think it would be immediately visible to Annie, given that Coyote routinely ate forest creatures to facilitate soul transfer.
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Sep 8, 2023 15:41
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I like the sunset shifting to night as it zooms in on the robot people, that's a nest visual.
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Sep 8, 2023 21:36
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CodfishCartographer posted:I like the sunset shifting to night as it zooms in on the robot people, that's a nest visual. I prefer to think that everyone just talks soooo slooooowly that it took a full day to have the conversation in those five panels.
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Sep 9, 2023 00:57
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Best page ever I'm in awe
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Sep 11, 2023 08:48
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We bring a real ‘going to the picnic’ energy to this funeral procession.
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Sep 11, 2023 09:33
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no sense of urgency (or even solemnity over lana's death) WHATSOFUCKINGEVER I like the idea of Annie intuiting which way to go based on her psychopomp poo poo/sensing Zimmy and Coyote or something, and actually having agency, but that's about all I can say that's positive. Just incredible pacing and lack thereof.
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Sep 11, 2023 10:36
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this doesnt even qualify as an establishing shot
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Sep 11, 2023 12:31
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Okay he's definitely padding things out now, right? Edit: Why is she whimsically smiling after a girl was murdered in front of her 5 minutes ago?!
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Sep 11, 2023 12:44
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Because it was the annoying girlfriend of that one annoying guy that you have known since middle school but he really changed during college and you don't really know her, so watching her be devoured by a god is sad, but its a remote sad, like hearing the death toll of a natural disaster on the other side of the world. Thing I don't understand: I read this page as her heading to the deepest, darkest part of the anomaly, presumably towards the center, where Gamma, Zimmy, Coyote, and Loup can be found. But she is trying to get "home", where ever that is. Were Gamma and Zimmy at "home"? I would have assumed they were not, since they never seemed to share quarters with the rest of the class. When Kat asked about the other people, it was in relation to the shore. The court's geography has always been nebulous, I get it, but is she heading towards the other side or towards the center?
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Sep 11, 2023 13:19
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I rewatched Catherine this morning and then looked at the comic and oh boy.
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Sep 11, 2023 13:37
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Splicer posted:I rewatched Catherine this morning and then looked at the comic and oh boy. ?
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Sep 11, 2023 13:55
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEtm_Q2LK9g
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Sep 11, 2023 18:23
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Heh, just a little obscure, British humor for you folks (Tom is from England).
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Sep 11, 2023 18:24
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Wednesday's page will be Annie and Reynard discussing the weather while strolling along aimlessly.
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Sep 11, 2023 18:42
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remember how annie used to have a bunch of friends she should be at least passingly concerned for?
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Sep 11, 2023 19:02
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I am very invested in Annie's quest to, and I quote, "Get home and tell people what's going on" M-me?
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Sep 11, 2023 19:09
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I sure love how the entire cast got pruned into nothingness.
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Sep 11, 2023 19:23
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Annointed posted:I sure love how the entire cast got pruned into nothingness. everyone else took the train to earth offscreen, annie's dad was so absentminded he wandered on following everyone else without realizing it was The Train and then had all his memories of annie wiped, the end
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Sep 11, 2023 19:54
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Rotten Red Rod posted:I am very invested in Annie's quest to, and I quote, "Get home and tell people what's going on" Her losing confidence because of the constant abuse she suffered from friends and family would make sense. But that can't be it because she's totally fine and okay now. Even that nice immortal stone lady agreed. Seriously though, I wonder how different this would read if we never got that chapter. And If Tom wasn't so adamant on just shredding every bit of meaningful conflict and ambiguity in the comic. JuniperCake fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Sep 11, 2023 |
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Sep 11, 2023 20:00
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Annointed posted:I sure love how the entire cast got pruned into nothingness. It's just negaAnnie and the new humans, who are the hollow, charmless vestiges of the fan favorite robots to ensure they will never make the comic whimsical and enjoyable again.
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Sep 11, 2023 20:33
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iMwIBkShyzw
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Sep 12, 2023 09:30
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Rotten Red Rod posted:It's just negaAnnie and the new humans, who are the hollow, charmless vestiges of the fan favorite robots to ensure they will never make the comic whimsical and enjoyable again. And even then, this could work thematically if Tom were willing to put in the work and build on the rich world he'd already set up! Take the reincarnated forest folk (who seem to be completely forgotten apart from Red and Ayilu). In the one and only chapter where they were introduced and featured, it was revealed that the Court had stuck them in a stifling, regimented classroom environment, because the Court can't abide chaos and wanted to effectively create drones. But even then, the entire class (including the teacher) are free to rebel in their own world that the Court couldn't even perceive, much less stamp out. Contrast that with the new humans, who are content to just gormlessly stand around open fields and dig up other robots so they can gormlessly stand around too. They were promised an "ocean" but got a puddle. Kat is an absentee deity, complete with her own false prophet trying to fill the gaps left by her negligence. Kat's essentially doing the same thing as the Court, via neglect, and while it may be unintentional on Kat's part, it's still harmful and demonstrates the downside of her actions (validating the fears of her becoming some sort of malevolent machine god). Will the new humans rebel, or at least abandon, the creator who seems uninterested in their development? (Maybe Robot's creepy cultism could have a nugget of a positive angle but oh whoops, that got abandoned too.) But Tom seems terrified of casting any of his protagonists in any sort of negative light anymore, so instead of people exploring complex questions we get plot-driven automata, carried along to a predefined conclusion. That's just one angle. There's so much that was started but then abandoned, and so much that could be said about the nature of belief, death, control (and lack thereof), creation (and abandonment of creation), and obligation, but instead we get "oh neat, the walkie talkie disassembled while teleporting. Anyhoo, fast travel to Area C3 to trigger the next cutscene."
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Sep 12, 2023 15:53
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I also would have loved to see what the former humans who took the Forest's test to become animals thought of being expelled by Loup and having to return to live at the Court. Did Tom forget about them too.
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Sep 13, 2023 00:04
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I like reading this thread as someone who hasn't read the webcomic it's about (outside of a few handfuls of pages here and there from clicking links) and trying to understand what's going on. I can't stop laughing (like actually laughing out loud IRL for the last ~5 minutes) at the idea that the creepy Lana picture is probably supposed to be a genuine memorial of some sort. The particularly weird thing about that (assuming it's actually the case) is that it's not exactly a low-effort picture; it's not easy to accurately draw human anatomy in a pose like that, and it's a really good illustration!
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Sep 13, 2023 01:44
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Ytlaya posted:I can't stop laughing (like actually laughing out loud IRL for the last ~5 minutes) at the idea that the creepy Lana picture is probably supposed to be a genuine memorial of some sort. The particularly weird thing about that (assuming it's actually the case) is that it's not exactly a low-effort picture; it's not easy to accurately draw human anatomy in a pose like that, and it's a really good illustration! One time pretty much everyone was convinced that a page indicated a disturbed state: the art was ominously framed, her expressions strange, and she gave a multi-page dialogue about how having a neglectful father is fine really after being directly asked about her mental health. Then the comic continued with “see, she’s actually fine”, the monologue was the truth, and that major plot point of parental issues has been gone ever since.
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Sep 13, 2023 05:33
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coolusername posted:One time pretty much everyone was convinced that a page indicated a disturbed state: the art was ominously framed, her expressions strange, and she gave a multi-page dialogue about how having a neglectful father is fine really after being directly asked about her mental health.  The funniest thing was seeing the reactions to that so cleanly split between "wow she's literally monologuing at the viewer" and "no, this has serious Off Vibes, the dutch angle and everything, something is definitely wrong and if this concludes without event then I'll eat my hat". And that this was split 50/50 regardless if the community was critical (e.g. here) or more sycophantic (like the official comments/forums). Like you had "he's seriously using her as a mouthpiece to tell us to gently caress off about tony, oh my loving god." and "haha you tell 'em Tom! annie is totally fine and nothing is wrong and she's totally self-assured! this is awesome! tell them where to stick it!" And, "This is definitely something wrong. Right? This has to end with something being horribly wrong or I'm going to drop this comic. This is Zimmyvision. This can't be serious. Please say sike" and "ohh noo annie something is wrong isn't it?  I wonder what Tom has in store for us! Poor Annie!"Like, something is seriously off when a sincere moment is being portrayed so absurdly that the entirety of your audience, neither the most keenly critical nor the most willing to give you the benefit of the doubt to the point of excess, can't figure out if it's supposed to be taken at face value or not. The same thing happened with the Lana picture. Everyone - both this thread and the usual repositories of sycophants - was sternly convinced this was meant to be creepy and Not Okay and a chilling indicator that something was Very Wrong. Multiple people referred to it as a jumpscare page both positively and negatively. People in the forums/comments were praising how creepy it was! Myself as an artist, I was firmly convinced that was the intention. It wasn't until someone pointed out the indicators of it being a flashback shot (like her coat being removed and on the same side as the Jerrek+Lana cuddle scene) that I started to doubt it and I am still in loving awe and denial about it. Like seriously, imagine drawing what was meant to be a genuine, loving, sweet tribute page to a bubbly, affectionate character who died, and even your most loyal sycophants are posting in droves like "Wow, it's loving creepy and horrific, A+ great job rendering this monstrosity Tom  "
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Sep 13, 2023 05:59
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Man I knew it was a flashback shot right away and everyone pooh-poohed me :P
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Sep 13, 2023 06:06
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Let's wait and see if he goes three for three
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Sep 13, 2023 07:11
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Tiny Myers posted:
Ahhhhh fond memories of hooting like an ape at the people still coping back then
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Sep 13, 2023 07:41
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love to have pattern recognition tbqfh
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Sep 13, 2023 07:53
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lol, update establishing shot
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Sep 13, 2023 08:05
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they have literally already explained the distortion to the robots IN THIS SAME CHAPTER. renard has been in one before! in past chapters every page served some loving purpose even if it was just to look interesting and draw the reader in LITERALLY WHAT IS THE REASON FOR THIS PAGE WHY ARE YOU DRAGGING OUT THE PACING WITH COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY PAGES ABOUT LITERALLY NAMELESS RANDOMLY-GENERATED CHARACTERS WE HAVE NO REASON TO CARE ABOUT WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS SO CLOSE TO THE FINISH LINE 
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Sep 13, 2023 08:08
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Sep 13, 2023 08:22
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Didn’t this get explained already in the establishing pages? Did he do two draft versions of the chapter’s opening pages and then mash them together instead of choosing one? 
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Sep 13, 2023 08:28
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As someone mostly unfamiliar with the context (from thread osmosis I know Annie's father is an rear end in a top hat and remember people discussing him wanting Annie to stop using make-up, but I hadn't seen this panel until now), this one isn't quite as weird as the Lana page. Seeing it for the first time and devoid of (most) context, I interpret this page as "Annie having reconciled with her father and making this clear to the reader" (regardless of whether this actually makes sense given the characters in question and their histories) But the Lana one just comes off as something obviously intended to be unsettling, regardless of context. If anything, the high quality of the illustration adds to this feeling, because it gives the impression that everything was deliberate.
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Sep 13, 2023 08:34
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I think it helps reader perspective-wise if you see the start of that conversation to understand the following general confusion of “this can’t possibly be sincerely okay, right???”  And then the slow horrified realisation that actually every other character’s concerns in the chapter following this were meant to be seen as not understanding her and foolish, ending in that monologue about how fine it all is.
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Sep 13, 2023 08:48
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Don't forget the part where she was separated into two different Annies by not-Coyote for a few chapters, allowing her to circumvent her dad's neuroses for a hot minute And then, in the chapter directly before this, merged together in a Zimmy ex machina that was so baffling and poorly communicated that some readers literally did not understand what had just happened That + the "Haha, my mental state!?" panel with her showing whites of her eyes and an awkward smile sent a lot of alarms blaring. Having the proverbial book close this way on the 2annie arc + Tony in general with "yeah this was actually 100% meant to be taken at face value, goodbye" led to a lot of people jumping ship, I think.
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Sep 13, 2023 08:52
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| # ? Jun 9, 2024 10:25 |
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Tiny Myers posted:WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS SO CLOSE TO THE FINISH LINE Ditocoaf posted:How would you feel if someone came back from the future and told you that this is chapter 91 of 250?
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Sep 13, 2023 09:00
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