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Well maybe they shouldn't have made Dragonborn suck rear end then huh???
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Sep 2, 2023 21:58
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Rotten Red Rod posted:Well maybe they shouldn't have made Dragonborn suck rear end then huh??? That was actually from a time in EA before those were even a thing.
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Sep 3, 2023 00:57
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"M-me?! Have agency in the plot?! Do something besides stand around with a mildly shocked expression and listen to other people accomplish things offscreen?! ARE YOU MAD?!" I can't believe this is the same Annie we started the story with. RocketMermaid fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Sep 4, 2023 |
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Sep 4, 2023 08:20
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RocketMermaid posted:"M-me?! Have agency in the plot?! Do something besides stand around with a mildly shocked expression and listen to other people accomplish things offscreen?! ARE YOU MAD?!" Both of those Annies died in the fusion incident and this one is just a product of Zimmy's imagination.
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Sep 4, 2023 13:21
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RocketMermaid posted:"M-me?! Have agency in the plot?! Do something besides stand around with a mildly shocked expression and listen to other people accomplish things offscreen?! ARE YOU MAD?!" Came here to post this, basically. Kat: "Annie, you have to do something." Annie "M-me?" Kat: "Yeah, you're supposed to be the main character, remember?" I almost feel like she will have to pull a Popeye and slam a can of spinach or something to muster the gumption to take action.
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Sep 4, 2023 13:32
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to be fair if you get shat on nonstop by everyone you know and a lot of people you've never seen before in your life for the crime of "being present when other people did some stuff" you'd probably be disinclined to bother taking charge of anything too not that I'm expecting that to be the reason here, mind, but
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Sep 4, 2023 13:35
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Ursine Catastrophe posted:to be fair if you get shat on nonstop by everyone you know and a lot of people you've never seen before in your life for the crime of "being present when other people did some stuff" you'd probably be disinclined to bother taking charge of anything too The former is someone who didn't even think of taking action. The latter is someone who wants to take action but doesn't because they're scared of loving up.
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Sep 4, 2023 13:47
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This had me thinking about all the times when Annie used to step up to the plate. Was she fearless? Not always. But at least she showed backbone, and it was consistent with her character and the circumstances. I'm leaving a TON out over the years, but here's some examples: Finding Jack in the Zimmyverse: https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=726 Taking on the Forest Medium position: https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1159 Handling the Forest monsters with diplomacy: https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1255 There's enough examples throughout the comic where it genuinely felt like her characterization. Annie used to be decisive, yet that's been chipped away for so much of the story these days that it feels like she's not even the same person. To use a weird Inside Out metaphor, it's like all of her personality traits have crumbled and she doesn't know who she is anymore. Even that would have been a cool story twist if it was truly noticed by her friends and they called her out on it. "Hey you haven't been the same since Zimmy merged you." Or her running into the version of herself that was lost in the merge in this amalgamation land. Or hell, recognizing that a lot of her personality was her trying to emulate who she thought her mother was, and once she truly let go, she needed time to recontextualize who she was. There's so many ways this could have gone where her reaction now would make sense. We don't get any of that, because we really needed to establish Lana and Loup, maybe handwave why there aren't any adults, except only the ones we never see anyway, and establish Lana and Loup some more, but mostly Loup.
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Sep 4, 2023 14:03
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RocketMermaid posted:"M-me?! Have agency in the plot?! Do something besides stand around with a mildly shocked expression and listen to other people accomplish things offscreen?! ARE YOU MAD?!" Like the very start, too. Within the first dozen pages of the comic, a much younger Annie decided that she had to construct a robot to solve a problem, despite having had basically 0 mechanical aptitude prior. Just said "gently caress it, I'm doing this."
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Sep 4, 2023 14:20
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To be charitable, this might not be Annie. Wouldn't be the first time with Zimmy. But she is, of course.
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Sep 4, 2023 14:35
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Maybe this time it's Lana in Annie's skin. ...considering this all started because Loup fell in love with the wrong fire-haired girl, I may not be joking about that.
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Sep 4, 2023 14:47
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Twenty Four posted:I almost feel like she will have to pull a Popeye and slam a can of spinach or something to muster the gumption to take action. Annie'll say to herself, "what would Lana do," and Annie's memories of her will give her the courage she needs to act.
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Sep 4, 2023 15:27
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Dammerung posted:what would Lana do Forgive her abuser and declare her love for them anyway checks out
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Sep 4, 2023 16:03
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Also like, what people are Kat even talking about to warn? We never see any non-robot humans unless the plot specifically demands them, such as when Annie met Jack and Jenny, or when Kat went to the ocean. In the diner scene we only saw a single panel with featureless background people, and it was solely when they said "let's go somewhere less public" lmao. I get drawing backgrounders takes time, but honestly I've kind of been under the impression that the court is almost entirely deserted by now.
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Sep 4, 2023 17:57
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Why is it not "Annie needs to solve this problem" but instead "Annie needs to go warn people about this problem"? Wouldn’t they already be aware of it? It's kind of conspicuous. And Annie has a connection with Zimmy, being the sole other person that can calm her powers like Gamma, so why is she taking this errand from Kat instead of being proactive? This is all so weird and weak. It just feels like Tom has forgotten everything he's established.
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Sep 4, 2023 18:03
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Usually Zimmie-verse chapters are interesting and challenging, with a lot of visual interest. I'm... I'm bored. People are just standing around and talking about stuff we know. Cool backgrounds, but nothing is happening
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Sep 4, 2023 19:47
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My baseless speculation is that when Tom moved to the US and got married, he lost his british powers, and thus, the plot.
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Sep 4, 2023 20:46
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A whole page dedicated to reminding the protagonist that she is the protagonist
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Sep 5, 2023 00:49
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Cavatica posted:This had me thinking about all the times when Annie used to step up to the plate. Was she fearless? Not always. But at least she showed backbone, and it was consistent with her character and the circumstances. I'm leaving a TON out over the years, but here's some examples: To see you standing tall, with your back straight, looking down on them!  At least Ysengrim didn't live long enough to see Annie turn into a soft sack of potatoes.
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Sep 5, 2023 06:36
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FlocksOfMice posted:To see you standing tall, with your back straight, looking down on them! when loup dies it's going to nearly guaranteed at least partially involve "annie guiding whatever's left of ysengrim to death" and it's going to be written as a bittersweet romantic parting thing with the hindsight of coyote expecting loup to have fallen in love with annie it will be exactly as  as everything else was now that we know that was the intent
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Sep 5, 2023 11:49
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FlocksOfMice posted:To see you standing tall, with your back straight, looking down on them! drat those earlier chapters were gorgeous and dynamic.
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Sep 5, 2023 14:15
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Ursine Catastrophe posted:when loup dies it's going to nearly guaranteed at least partially involve "annie guiding whatever's left of ysengrim to death" and it's going to be written as a bittersweet romantic parting thing with the hindsight of coyote expecting loup to have fallen in love with annie Thanks, I hate it.
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Sep 5, 2023 16:37
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I hope we get to see Ysengrim again if only so he can say "Coyote wtf she's like my adopted daughter dude that's nasty"
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Sep 5, 2023 17:10
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Well don't worry, she's literally heading in the opposite direction of any sort of plot development M-me?!
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Sep 5, 2023 18:23
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"The Court was looking to mess with monsters like Coyote and Zimmy, and look what they got" But... this was expressly not because of the Court's actions in any way??? In fact this is because of Kat's actions: she made New People, thus causing Lana to derail Coyote's plot (ignoring that the plot was weird and creepy and bad). That was kind of the whole point! Coyote was going after Kat and accidentally ran into Zimmy, and Loup, pissed off by Lana's death, ran into both of them! Which is a thing Annie has not yet communicated to Kat! At all! Much more important to have several pages of "oh, poor Lana"! But Coyote was explicitly looking for Kat in order to kill her! Coyote, an unpredictable and all-powerful god-being, who the comic even acknowledged Annie best understands the danger of! Coyote, who is at least partly responsible for the way the landscape has violently and unpredictably changed, which could cause it to manifest in a way that is dangerous to Kat's wellbeing! Kat, who has been Annie's emotional rock for the entire comic! Kat, who when Annie was first in Zimmyvision, immediately went "FIRST WE FIND KAT" while lifting Zimmy by the collar!
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Sep 6, 2023 10:56
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Everything feels so disjointed and I can't tell if its deliberate, accidental, or somewhere in between. First, the rapidly changing sky is very distracting. Previous panels show that the sun and the moon(s) are all in the sky, so presumably the sky exists with all different times simultaneously. But comic convention is that a changing sky indicates the passage of time, so even if I intellectually know that the sky is screwed up, I still read all these pages as taking place over entire days. And the backgrounds are changing so rapidly that I can't tell where each panel exists in relationship to each other. Almost every panel is now a closeup, but the background switches between tree, building, green blob, buildingy blob, massive city scape with no respect for what the previous panel showed vs. character direction. The two effects combined makes each page feel like snapshots in time from Annie just spinning in circles for weeks on end. And then Annie's expressions. She switches so completely from sad to timid and confused to confident and resolute over the last three pages. Presumably she is processing the emotions of telling Kat about Lana, then getting confident from Kat's faith in her, but there is no transition, no progression, just boom, new page, Annie is now Confused, new page, Annie is now Confident. The last panel of Monday's strip, with her looking off to the side in worry (or maybe someone just said her name off panel) just doesn't slip straight to her on the first panel of today's strip, with all the self assurance of someone ready to venture boldly forth into a brave new world. Sure, we are in a Zimmy distortion, and those have always been disjointed or screwy. But this feels less like the subtle misdirection like in Power Station, and more like someone just flashing lights and noises in my face while I am trying to read.
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Sep 6, 2023 12:45
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Yeah I was going to say the sudden confidence and protagonisthood of Annie here is jarring like he's reading the comments and went "oh right Annie is usually actually pretty unflappable and undaunted by things" and just. Idk.
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Sep 6, 2023 17:42
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I'm legit impressed people keep giving Tom the benefit of the doubt lol
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Sep 6, 2023 18:04
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Lol literally none of this is the court's fault, it's 100% Coyote loving around. If anything they were right to try and stop him, and ANNIE is the one at fault (sort of). Not like they care anyway. When is the last time the court did, well, anything? it's basically been Annie and Kat running things for a while. The robot defenses is the closest thing they've come to taking an action, and that was automated.
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Sep 6, 2023 18:17
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Yeah what the hell am I reading. Who are these people. Everyone is completely over Lana lmao. Supposedly Coyote killed a person! Coyote wants to find and probably harm Kat! But it's all smirks and smiles in the biggest Zimmyverse thus far. Also Kat has had serious influence in the ether before! The gang has seen it TWICE so far. First with the ship/whale body, then with Jeanne. They also know Kat sees etheric things differently. Feels weird/forced for Kat, who just teleported a communication device (in pieces), to say she can't help much and for Annie to basically agree.
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Sep 6, 2023 18:29
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catapede posted:Yeah what the hell am I reading. Who are these people. I agree that her throwing her hands up and saying "guess I'm useless" is very silly, but her not wanting to gently caress with the teleporter anymore was at least reasonable to me. Kat is an avid consumer of media, and all it takes is one good demonstration of a teleporter accident to never want to gently caress with that.
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Sep 7, 2023 13:35
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remember that "oh it makes sense she wouldnt want to help much with this teleporter thing going on" is also "tom wrote the first arc where things are happening in such a way as to sideline kat completely because it's too hard to write her powerset that he gave her not breaking the story immediately"
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Sep 7, 2023 15:24
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Tiny Myers posted:I agree that her throwing her hands up and saying "guess I'm useless" is very silly, but her not wanting to gently caress with the teleporter anymore was at least reasonable to me. Kat is an avid consumer of media, and all it takes is one good demonstration of a teleporter accident to never want to gently caress with that. I meant that example in the sense that she did literally just help/do something useful, even if it wasn't perfect. There's probably other ways she can help that doesn't involve the teleporter. Patware posted:remember that "oh it makes sense she wouldnt want to help much with this teleporter thing going on" is also "tom wrote the first arc where things are happening in such a way as to sideline kat completely because it's too hard to write her powerset that he gave her not breaking the story immediately" But yeah also this.
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Sep 7, 2023 16:00
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I mean, Kat can still provide material support with her teleporter, just that she doesn't want to risk teleporting people. Looking back at the past few pages, Kat's train of thought is that Annie is the closest thing they have to an expert on Zimmy, and she doesn't have much experience with the Ether and her tech isn't working the way it should be, so she's leaving it up to Annie, which are both fair points. Sure, Kat may have almost godlike power now, but the first time she tried to use it to give Annie a walkie-talkie, it arrived in pieces. I just wish the comic would hurry the gently caress up already.
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Sep 7, 2023 16:12
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Randalor posted:I mean, Kat can still provide material support with her teleporter, just that she doesn't want to risk teleporting people. Looking back at the past few pages, Kat's train of thought is that Annie is the closest thing they have to an expert on Zimmy, and she doesn't have much experience with the Ether and her tech isn't working the way it should be, so she's leaving it up to Annie, which are both fair points. Sure, Kat may have almost godlike power now, but the first time she tried to use it to give Annie a walkie-talkie, it arrived in pieces. Yeah like, I think all the logic put forward so far is fair, but the pace is just so plodding. Maybe it'll read better in the archive, but following live is kind of excruciating lol.
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Sep 7, 2023 17:42
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Randalor posted:I mean, Kat can still provide material support with her teleporter, just that she doesn't want to risk teleporting people. Looking back at the past few pages, Kat's train of thought is that Annie is the closest thing they have to an expert on Zimmy, and she doesn't have much experience with the Ether and her tech isn't working the way it should be, so she's leaving it up to Annie, which are both fair points. Sure, Kat may have almost godlike power now, but the first time she tried to use it to give Annie a walkie-talkie, it arrived in pieces. the whole thing with kat was supposed to be she simply ignores the rules of the ether, last i checked
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Sep 7, 2023 19:32
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Sep 7, 2023 21:11
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 Re: the update, can't see what bullshit plot point is in mind that requires all the robot people to be present. Also that first panel is like, drawn from two different angles at once. Here's the original + two attempts to fix it to show what I mean by 'two angles at once'.   
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Sep 8, 2023 08:33
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As the local Psychopomp apprentice, shouldn't Annie have taken Lana's last record, or can that wait?
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Sep 8, 2023 10:17
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maltesh posted:As the local Psychopomp apprentice, shouldn't Annie have taken Lana's last record, or can that wait? The robots don't have a psychopomp. "We do not deal in electronic appliances" - Muut (I think).
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Sep 8, 2023 12:53
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