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GunnerJ posted:Also as exposition goes, the last panel is pretty hilariously bad too. If we remember what "the ROTD" means, we don't need anyone telling us this is what they're talking about! (Dead guy should interject this observation from the background for comic relief!!) Going back to the strips about the ROTD just makes me miss Mort even more.
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Dec 20, 2023 21:06
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RocketMermaid posted:Going back to the strips about the ROTD just makes me miss Mort even more. Son of a bitch went to the afterlife and took the plot with him
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Dec 20, 2023 22:08
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He's that disappearing check that goes woosh in those life insurance commercials.
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Dec 20, 2023 22:16
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I think the saddest thing is none of this came about from Kat or Annie demonstrating agency with the new life they created. Imagine if they’d actually tried to work out what happened to the robot dead when Lana got ate as opposed to this just being monologued to them. Unfortunately at no time during this comic have Annie and Kat worked on finding out anything to do with ghosts, the afterlife and robots.  diego, jeanne, mort? Sounds fake.
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Dec 20, 2023 22:45
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This would definitely work a lot better, tonally, if it were happening in a one-off regular chapter, where one of the new robot people died in like an industrial accident. Then it would make sense for Annie and Kat to be so calm and curious about the whole thing. As opposed to this, which is happening in the middle of the Loup/Zimmy Fusion Nightmare Dimension Apocalypse, where the robot was killed by the memory of a ghost from Annie's subconscious. Feels like there should be some more urgency? Maybe some heightened emotions? Something to keep the tension high and remind us of the precarious situation back in reality? Eh I guess they didn't really care about Jeanne at all, it's fine.
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Dec 20, 2023 23:04
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all the time spent with the new people has made me allergic to that gormless pop-eyed stare bald boy’s doing on the last panel
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Dec 21, 2023 01:58
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Begemot posted:This would definitely work a lot better, tonally, if it were happening in a one-off regular chapter, where one of the new robot people died in like an industrial accident. Then it would make sense for Annie and Kat to be so calm and curious about the whole thing. The lack of urgency in the situation they've been in has been an issue since Loup was introduced. At this point I wonder if things would have been better if Loup never attacked the Court at all, but we still hit some of the major story beats. I know we have the benefit of retrospect, but it feels like there are other ways to get to where we are in the story that doesn't sacrifice the pacing.
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Dec 21, 2023 03:30
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lol baldy is just a macguffin of a person.
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Dec 22, 2023 09:58
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Begemot posted:This would definitely work a lot better, tonally, if it were happening in a one-off regular chapter, where one of the new robot people died in like an industrial accident. Then it would make sense for Annie and Kat to be so calm and curious about the whole thing.
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Dec 22, 2023 10:45
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I’m just happy they have emotional expressions right now. Not about the dead guy who’s been standing silently NPC style as everyone infodumps but hey, emotions!
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Dec 22, 2023 11:06
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Imagine if this results in Annie being mutated by the ether into a robot's idea of a death guide. Clippy.
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Dec 22, 2023 11:51
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The true origin of Boxbot. 
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Dec 22, 2023 12:06
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Nettle Soup posted:The true origin of Boxbot. We talk about the comic making everything Annie's fault somehow but this would be a step too far.
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Dec 22, 2023 12:09
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The translator ghost says: "Left alone, the memory of them fades, then they are nothing" Meanwhile Annie and Kat contemplate the situation while baldy being such a background non character is still forgotten and slowly fades out into nothingness like a picture in Marty McFly's wallet, and no one notices until after the fact. if that happens just lmao
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Dec 22, 2023 12:47
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There Bias Two posted:Imagine if this results in Annie being mutated by the ether into a robot's idea of a death guide. No, she'll just sprout some orange star-tipped antennae from the top of her head. Her suddenly much more football-shaped head.
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Dec 22, 2023 12:49
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Twenty Four posted:The translator ghost says: I get the feeling we aren't supposed to be trusting the translator ghost. He looks downright evil in this page, and... isn't what he's saying about ghosts fading and becoming nothing an outright lie? Mort stuck around for literal decades before moving on, after all.
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Dec 22, 2023 12:56
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Randalor posted:I get the feeling we aren't supposed to be trusting the translator ghost. He looks downright evil in this page, and... isn't what he's saying about ghosts fading and becoming nothing an outright lie? Mort stuck around for literal decades before moving on, after all. He didn't specify a time frame. Maybe it takes hundreds of years. Also Kat is right in asking what would happen to Annie if she becomes a psychopomp. You should never take a job offer without knowing every detail, like, does she get health coverage? Paid vacations? Afterlife benefits?
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Dec 22, 2023 13:45
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Finally someone thinks for once, good job Kat. She's gonna pick Robot.
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Dec 22, 2023 13:56
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I was mostly making jokes but I actually think it would be a good dark gallows humor type joke if that bald robot guy just disappeared after the warning while they deliberated considering the current focus and all *oops* lol
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Dec 22, 2023 14:24
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Blaze Dragon posted:He didn't specify a time frame. Maybe it takes hundreds of years. I guess that's a fair point, but "They'll eventually fade. I mean, longer than anyone will actually live for, but EVENTUALLY" is a bit hard to accept when you consider that, I mean, strictly speaking, the Universe will EVENTUALLY end, but it's so far in the future that it's essentially a moot point. This kinda feels like a Legacy of Kain "Elder God that eats souls is pissed that immortals exist so he can't eat their souls" situation is coming up.
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Dec 22, 2023 14:34
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Mort was semi employed, that could’ve protected him since he was part of the system
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Dec 22, 2023 14:55
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Randalor posted:I get the feeling we aren't supposed to be trusting the translator ghost. He looks downright evil in this page, and... isn't what he's saying about ghosts fading and becoming nothing an outright lie? Mort stuck around for literal decades before moving on, after all. E: Darth TNT posted:Mort was semi employed, that could’ve protected him since he was part of the system Splicer fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Dec 22, 2023 |
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Dec 22, 2023 15:19
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Also, in a way Mort was disappearing a little. That transition of him going from a ghost to a kid under a bed sheet comes to mind. So maybe him being employed slowed down the process, but at least physically it seemed like a part of him was fading a bit. When he went into the ether, he was a whole kid again.
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Dec 22, 2023 15:27
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just want to say the little interpreter guy loving sucks in a positive way. he's a smug, pompous little oik who causes problems for the cast whenever he shows up and those problems are as severe as they are mundane. mr huph from the incredibles plus casper the rear end in a top hat ghost actually where's that discworld quote quote:A bully, thought Susan. A very small, weak, very dull bully, who doesn’t manage any real bullying because there’s hardly anyone smaller and weaker than him, so he just makes everyone’s lives just that little bit more difficult… Oxxidation fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Dec 25, 2023 |
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Dec 25, 2023 19:00
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It kind of makes me wonder what Arbiter Saslamel would be like if he was interpreted by someone else.
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Dec 25, 2023 19:07
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Oxxidation posted:just want to say the little interpreter guy loving sucks in a positive way. he's a smug, pompous little oik who causes problems for the cast whenever he shows up and those problems are as severe as they are mundane. mr huph from the incredibles plus casper the rear end in a top hat ghost Yep. I kinda love the interpreter guy. You get the feeling he’s just the middle man who tries to make things hard because he hates that he has to answer every question to be able to continue his work.
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Dec 25, 2023 21:46
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Is Annie currently special because she is a psychopomp that is still in the physical world? Is that why the other psychopomps wanted her to work for them? I'd guess if she was granted this assignment, she would be just like every other psychopomp.
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Dec 26, 2023 03:30
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Do the other cultures only have one psychopomp or can there be multiple? I'm thinking Robot and the Seraphs are gonna be it. I'm suddenly invested in the comic again because actually interesting things are happening here.
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Dec 26, 2023 10:39
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DontMindMe posted:Is Annie currently special because she is a psychopomp that is still in the physical world? Is that why the other psychopomps wanted her to work for them? Maybe they just don't like the idea of a psychopomp that's living in the physical world. Like, it's not technically against the rules but it's just not how it's supposed to work so they want to fix it
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Dec 26, 2023 21:57
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uh, isn’t she already forced to do it?? https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1787 so is kat just letting her take over another department of someone else’s choice later? like don’t get me wrong, seems like a crappy job shepherding weird blasé robot corpses forever, but…
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Dec 27, 2023 09:13
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Annie is resigned to someday having to be an official psychopomp, but that day hasn't come yet. In this situation, though, it sounds like Kat could immediately enlist her as the soul guide of the new people, and is understandably reluctant to do so without Annie's consent.
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Dec 27, 2023 13:24
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The way I read it: Annie's mom was half fire elemental and half mortal and a trained (?) mediator. She was very helpful to the psychopomps for settling disputes, Annie was pulled into that role at a young age and even took her own (empty) mother into the ether. For this and a bunch of other reasons the psychopomps have always considered Annie a Good Get as the inheritor of Surma's etheric essence, and as the more standard Daughter of Surma, and as herself in her own right. Annie has brought people into the ether before but they've been etherless (like Surma) or off limits/special circumstances (Mort, Jean and Green etc). All already nclaimable by the other psychopomps, so no territory disputes. She wasn't acting as a full member of Psychopomp chapter Omnipresent 1, more as a specialist freelancer or consultant. Also possibly all part of a plan to lure/trap her into the fold so they weren't exactly going to press the issue. After The Other Shore, in return for healing Smitty Annie had to promise to /at some point/ become properly Folklore Certified, but exactly when this needs to happen has been left deliberately vague. She's on the roster but not on active duty. Psychopomps are biological (etherically?) immortal so now that they have her word they probably just decided to play the waiting game; presumably if she died they'd just say "lol, good job idiot, first day starts now" (How her losing her soul to pregnancy could have affected things idk, maybe an implicit part of the promise means she isn't allowed or now physically can't? I'm not comfortable continuing this one of enquiry) That's all changed though. Maybe once she made the Smitty deal any new work would have counted as union work, or maybe it's as the Arbiter said and setting a precedent for an entire new people and culture is too big a job to be done off books. There's a bunch of reasons why it could be playing out like this and they're all valid, it's only a question of which is the kicker. Why the god of the new people is the one who gets to decide if she's picking it up or not is similarly ambiguous, but presumably it's because she's already officially on the roster and can therefore be selected, or because she accidentally submitted her tender by offering to escort Baldy earlier, or probably both. Kat's being presented with two options each with major impacts on her best friend. She's a good person at heart so she's not going to throw her friend in it without her full informed consent, and as the semi-corporeal embodiment of STEM she's deeply distrustful of c-suites and refusing to accept the information she's being given at face value. I'm happy with the basic progression of all this. The details are a mess (Baldy being a nobody and just kind of chilling off to the side forgotten, everything Lana related, this all happening in the dumb Loup/Zimmy/whatever thing) but ignoring all that this is an obvious (in a good way) climax to a lot of old plot threads. There's enough wriggle room in all of this that I could see Kat rules lawyering Annie into a third option where she lives on site instead of commuting from the etheric suburbs. Or it could be something real dumb. Splicer fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Dec 27, 2023 |
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Dec 27, 2023 15:27
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I mean, it sounds like they're gearing up for her to live in Kat's factory dimension. It's a sphere outside the confines of the mortal world, and it's the domain of the Goddess of the Numen. Plus, I mean, I don't think we've been told that she HAS to spend all her non-psychopomp time living in the pocket dimension, just that the other psychopomps do (though I don't think we were even told that, just that they live outside of reality).
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Dec 27, 2023 15:48
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Kat puts Annie's soul into a robot body somehow, that'll count as not being among the living right?
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Dec 27, 2023 18:36
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The Court is basically off-world now, or so we were told a number of chapters back -- make of that what you will -- but whether that counts as "not in the material world" is less clear.
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Dec 27, 2023 19:50
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Oooh that lil guy mad
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Jan 2, 2024 21:11
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are we approaching a climax or anything resembling one soon
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Jan 2, 2024 21:58
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No. This is hell and we are all boxbots.
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Jan 2, 2024 22:51
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I'm pretty much convinced that any notions of the story working towards an ending were all in our heads. We're literally inceptioned into a sideplot within a sideplot at this point.
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Jan 2, 2024 22:57
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You know I think it would have been more fun if baldie was dragged to robot hell
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Jan 2, 2024 23:05
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