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Web Comic: Gunnerkrigg Court
Every symbol is significant.

Within the first week of my attendance, I began noticing a number of strange occurrences. The most prevalent of these oddities being the fact that I seemed to have obtained a second shadow.
Antimony

Gunnerkrigg Court is an Urban Fantasy/Science Fiction webcomic by Tom Siddell about a strange young girl attending an equally strange school. The intricate story is deeply rooted in world mythology, but has a strong focus on science (chemistry and robotics, most prominently) as well.

Antimony Carver begins classes at the eponymous U.K. Boarding School, and soon notices that strange events are happening: a shadow creature follows her around; a robot calls her "Mommy"; a Rogat Orjak smashes in the dormitory roof; odd birds, ticking like clockwork, stand guard in out-of-the-way places. Stranger still, in the middle of all this, Annie remains calm and polite to a fault.

Meanwhile, Annie befriends the technically-minded Katerina Donlan, whose parents both teach at the Court. The two serve as foils for each other: Kat's energetic, outgoing personality plays off Annie's initial reserve, which enables much of their character development.

Kat soon gets roped into Annie's investigations of the Court's mysteries, but every answer they receive raises more questions: about the school, about their fellow students, about the woods just across the river, and about their own parents. Soon, they start stumbling on creatures and intricate symbols from all possible mythologies — as well as plain old chemistry— topped off by the Mesoamerican trickster god Coyote, who has his own designs for Antimony and the school premises. Throughout all this, Annie and Kat uncover the story of a truly frightening ghost woman, whose portrait is worshiped by Gunnerkrigg's crew of golem robots and who seems to be the key to some of the school's greatest mysteries.

Each chapter is a self-contained Story Arc. However, after several chapters, connections begin appearing between seemingly unrelated plot threads — but the exact nature of their link remains tantalizingly (or frustratingly) unclear for now. Although the story draws on some dark childhood fears, there is more than enough optimism (both innocent and realistic) to offset it.

You should start from the beginning. Don't be put off by the style — the comic's art evolves quickly.

The comic is also published in hardcover form.* So far, the volumes include:
  • Gunnerkrigg Court: Orientation (January 2009) collects the first 14 chapters.
  • Gunnerkrigg Court: Research (March 2010) collects chapters 15 - 22, plus the City Face bonus comic.
  • Gunnerkrigg Court: Reason (August 2011) collects chapters 23 - 31, City Face 2.


This comic provides examples of:

    open/close all folders 

    Setting 
  • Academy of Adventure
  • Aerith and Bob: There are people named Surma, Antimony, Gamma and Zeta and Sir Eglamore as well as Jack, Janet, James and Andrew Smith, whose magic power is to make things orderly.
  • Arc Number: 113. It appears many times across the comic.
  • Boarding School
  • Campbell Country
  • Circus of Fear: Mort's creation to scare Paz.
  • City of Adventure: Gunnerkrigg Court — a school resembling an industrial complex the size of a city (with its own park!), just next door to a creepy forest.
  • Dark World: A dark city, the evil twin of Birmingham.
  • Eldritch Location: The Forest and the Court don't exactly fit in normal reality. For one, the Court is an enormous city, with multiple parks, lakes, and power stations, but it's virtually completely abandoned, and seemingly stretches on forever.
  • Extranormal Institute: The Court. Virtually everyone inside it is some manner of bizarre, or related to people who are. There seem to be a few baseline Muggles but they typically have oddities in their jobs, like Eglamore being a Dragon Hunter.
  • Floorboard Failure: Jones averts this by bypassing the rickety floorboards altogether.
  • The Lost Woods: Gillitie Wood.
  • No OSHA Compliance:
    • The Year 7 dorms.
    • The bridge to Gillitie Forest. It's wide enough to not be immediately dangerous unless people walking on it do something unusually stupid, and it lacks railing, since any shadow cast on it would allow the Glass-Eyed Men to cross it at night.
  • Raygun Gothic: The plot of Dr. Disaster's simulator.
  • Scenery Porn
  • Urban Fantasy
  • Spirit World: The Aether, which Annie enters when she uses her blinker stone.
  • Staying With Friends: Invoked but not implemented. Yet.
  • Where the Hell Is Springfield?: We've been given just enough information about Gunnerkrigg's location to know it doesn't fit anywhere on the map of the U.K.
  • White Void Room: The inactive holosimulator.
  • Wizarding School: The court is a subversion. Even though magic occurs on school grounds, the court considers any and all phenomena as scientific.
  • The World Tree: A Cherry Tree (from Gillitie Woods) in the artificial habitat room; it is there Annie starts to open up to Kat. In "Divine" there is a callback to the tree as a place where Annie can put aside her "mask."

    Narrative / Themes 
  • Aborted Arc: The paintings from Chapter 2: Schoolyard Myths, as seen in page 7 were supposed to be part of a sub plot, but Tom has since dropped the concept.
  • Absurdly Sharp Blade: The tooth Coyote gave to Annie in Chapter 26: The Old Dog's Tricks. On Kat's official sharpness classification, said blade is "Really damn sharp", to the point of cutting a shadow from the floor. But it doesn't cut Shadow himself, fortunately for him.
    Coyote: The keenest blade you will ever find! Be careful with it, because it could cut the very earth!
  • Adults Are Useless: Subtly deconstructed.
  • Amplifier Artifact: Blinker Stones.
  • Anachronic Order: Chapter 11, "Dobranoc, Gamma", and Chapter 18, "S1".
  • Animal Motifs / Animal Stereotypes: Many, including Wolves, Foxes, Cats, Insects, Birds, Coyotes and Owls.
  • Arc Words:
    "She died and we did nothing."
    "The court grew from the seed Bismuth."
  • Awful Truth:
    • Annie and Kat learns that the founders, especially Diego, were responsibles for Jeanne's death in Chapter 25: Sky Watcher And The Angel.
    • Annie learns that she's responsible for her mother's death by her sole existence in Chapter 31: Fire Spike.
  • Batman Gambit: Mediation involves noticing hints and predicting people's reaction.
  • Blah Blah Blah: From Chapter 21: Blinking: "Chatter jargon strange words."
  • Blowing a Raspberry: A truly epic one starts in Page 21 of Chapter 36: Red Gets A Name, and goes all the way through Page 22.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Eglamore and Kat, on three separate occasions. Two were played straight, one was a subversion.
  • Body Motifs: Lots of emphasis on the eyes.
  • Brain Bleach:
    • Kat after meeting Ketrak.
    "I need new eyes and a new brain!"
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The bonus page of Chapter 29 features Bobby the robot giving out pigeon facts. At the bottom of the page is this:
    One day I saw a pigeon fall from a tree, its body twisted and broken from an attack somewhere above. It writhed on the floor in silence and eventually died. It had no expression, just as I have no expression. I have never relayed this story to anyone.
  • Break the Cutie: Chapter 31.
  • Breaking the Fellowship: Surma, Anthony, Eglamore, Anja, Donald and (presumably) Brinnie were one inseparable company as students and perhaps for some time later, but before the story started, Surma left the Court and broke all contact with the rest except Anthony, and it's unknown yet when and where Brinnie gone.
  • Brick Joke:
  • Bug Buzz
  • The Cavalry: The TicTocs
  • Chekhov's Gun: The etheric scar which Annie received from Jeanne's sword in Chapter 8 has been repeatedly alluded to throughout the story, as it remains on her face, clearly visible to all etherically sensitive individuals. Its true significance still remains a mystery.
  • Chiaroscuro
  • Clingy MacGuffin: Blinker stones...but only when the owner wants them to be.
  • Comically Missing the Point: Jones basically gives a compliment to Annie in this page comparing Shadow's open-mindedness to her's, but Annie still takes it literally.
  • Cosmetic Catastrophe: The results of Kat's first attempt to use makeup were not pretty.
  • Country Matters: Ouch.
  • Cringe Comedy: The strips of Jack trying to hit on Annie after he was freed from spider control were painfully awkward for the both of them and the audience.
  • Crossover Cosmology: Reynardine and Ysengrin are based off Reynaerde/Renard the fox and Ysengrimus the wolf, respectively, from Medieval European folklore. Muut, Coyote, and the Glass-Eyed Men are from Native American myth. There's also several ghosts, fairies, and, for good measure, a flashback montage featuring every psychopomp, ever. Chang'e, Brynhildr, and the Minotaur (of Chinese, Norse, and Greek mythology, respectively) have also made appearances.
  • Cryptic Conversation: Invoked by Coyote:
    Antimony: Coyote, can you tell me, what is Gunnerkrigg Court?
    Coyote: Why... It is man's endeavor to become God! How is that for an enigmatic answer?
  • Curiosity Killed the Cast: Not the lethal kind, but there were rather close calls. Curiosity also starts several plots, and often proves helpful when combined with compassion.
  • Curse Cut Short:
  • Cutting the Knot: Ms. Jones' way of dispelling fancy magic runes.
  • Dada Comics: The dialogue and visuals in the super triple excellent City Face chapter and also its sequel which is known as City Face #2 invoke very much the feeling of this trope which describes them!
  • Death Glare:
  • Deface of the Moon: Thanks to Coyote's friendly help. It's still visible in later portions of the story. At least in the Court.
  • Department of Redundancy Department:
    • "Spacemonauts! The evil Enigmarons are threatening the Earth from their moon base on the moon!"
    • The creepy space aliens from outer space.
  • Do Androids Dream?: The Court robots seem to have personalities and their own society out of sight of the humans, and they are explicitly trying to figure out their "purpose" beyond merely being custodians of the Court. One of the biggest questions they seek an answer to is why their creator, Diego, would engineer the death of someone he loved. They also think of Kat as an angel.
  • Driving Question: What exactly is Gunnerkrigg Court?
  • Easily Detachable Robot Parts: Sometimes.
  • Environmental Symbolism
  • Epic Fail: Pretty much any time the court robots try to keep something secret from the students. Like posting signs telling you where the secret stuff is.
  • Epic Hail: One of the many uses for Blinker Stones.
  • Esoteric Motifs: Strange symbols abound at the school — although some signs are less "mystical" than you'd expect.
  • Ethereal Sciences: A lot, but some more than other, like literally Magical Computer.
  • Explosive Leash:
    Tom: Reminder: Coyote ain't your bro.
  • Fantastic Aesop: Lampshaded.
    Bob: Hmm, there's a lesson in all this... (...) Never let sixty angry kids use a herd of laser cows to take over your house.
  • Fling a Light Into the Future: The original Magitec robots didn't have the means to reproduce, so they designed the modern court robots as their successors.
  • The Force: The Ether, which, like the Trope Namer, infuses all living things, can be directly harnessed only by a few humans, and bestows upon its users the abilities of telekinesis, clairvoyance, teleportation, flight, and superhuman speed and jumping abilities, and can even be used to create Magitek like 'etheric computers', which can project Deflector Shields or bind people/things if their users will it.
  • Friend Versus Lover: Antimony, Kat, Alistair.
  • Fractured Fairy Tale: Basil's backstory.
  • A Friend in Need
  • Functional Magic: All kinds.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar:
  • Giant Engineer Crab: Lindsey
  • Green Lantern Ring: Blinker Stones — lenses for psychic powers, whose full uses have yet to be revealed.
  • The Guards Must Be Crazy: The Guardbots, Doorbot.
  • Ham-to-Ham Combat: Parley and Mort improvised it once.
  • Hard Light:
    • Dr. Disaster's simulations.
    • The Glass-Eyed Men seem to be made of pure shadow, but Kat deduces that they're actually just very thin layer of matter that may as well be a layer of light. Or, you know, dark.
  • Harmony Versus Discipline: In just about every sense, from magic, nature, and world view, the Court and Gillitie woods are opposed. The Court favors rational methods, control, and gray expansive industrialization. The Wood represents nature, unbound and at times terrifying.
  • He Is Not My Boyfriend: Thanks for clearing that up, Annie.
  • Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action: Apparently, Annie and her mother are descended from a cross between a human and a Fire Elemental.
    Coyote: What an interesting first union that must have been...
  • Hug and Comment: Chapter 32 ends with Annie and Kat hugging, and then Kat saying "Annie ... I love you and everything, so ... it is with love that I must inform you that you really gotta take a shower."
  • Humans Are Flawed: Chapter 29:
    Paz: The Court isn't a big monster that does as it pleases. Es a collection of people, working to do what they think is right. And, over time, other people see what is wrong, what mistakes were made, and work hard to fix them.
  • I Have to Go Iron My Dog: Annie needs to go... find... a book. To the left. Or to the right. Whatever.
  • Important Haircut:
    • Both Annie and Kat start wearing their hair differently after the incident on the bridge.
    • Later, half a chapter is devoted to a visit to the barber.
      Tom: Thank you for reading this chapter about girls getting haircuts.
    • Played with more than played straight.
    • Kat gets another one after her opinion about the Court changes in Chapter 29.
    • And once again, Annie and Kat have noticeably different hair after the summer holiday between chapters 31 and 32, Annie having grown hers longer than it ever was and begun to tie it back, and Kat having cut hers shorter than it ever was, accentuating the growing rift between them.
  • Inconvenient Summons: Parley, to herself.
  • Incredibly Lame Pun:
    • Kat completely unabashedly tossing off this line is just one of the many ways she's so very lovable.
      "It may be empty but it's full of potential!"
    • Annie's attempts at humor are a bit more...forced.
  • Insult Friendly Fire
  • Interspecies Romance:
    • Sort of. Poor, poor Kat...
    • Reynardine, with an unrequited love.
    • Jeanne and her elf lover.
    • Antimony's ancestors.
    Coyote: I admire man's ability to see beauty in everything! Even a flame!
  • Intoxication Ensues: Cherry-induced tipsiness.
  • Ironic Echo: Eglamore responds to the students' complaints about camping in the cold with "Good question. Night!" At the chapter's end, the sleeping arrangements have reversed, and Annie tells Eggers: "You know where the tents are. Night!"
  • Is That What She Never Did Tell You: Annie collected a heavy basket of this looking for answers in all the wrong places. Now this began to hit her, mostly in the face. When she finally talked with her mother's best friend directly, she made some... little discoveries. Like why Surma left the Court to never return, or related to Annie the tales of Coyote but didn't mention knowing him or say anything about other notorious inhabitants of Gillitie Wood she knew at least as well.
  • It Was a Gift
  • Jigsaw Puzzle Plot
  • Kill It with Fire: As of Fire Spike, traumatizing Annie is a really bad idea.
  • Letter Motif: Gunnerkrigg, Gillitie, Good Hope: the letter G seems to be important. One wonders what this implies about Miss Gamma Czarnecki.
  • A Light in the Distance: Annie, lost and alone in the Annan gorge, sees a light on the opposite shore. Then it gets worse.
  • Limited Wardrobe: Averted. The characters wear all kinds of clothes, appropriately to the situation. And the two female protagonists even change their hairstyle regularly.
  • Literal Metaphor: Both Renard and Coyote repeatedly told Annie almost word for word "You have a fire in you, fire that belonged to your mother". This turned out to be not a runaway compliment, but a fairly straightforward, concise and accurate statement.
  • Living Emotional Crutch: Kat to Annie, Gamma to Zimmy, Annie to Renard.
  • Love Transcends Spacetime: Hello Parley! How did you get here?
  • Magic A is Magic A: It's implied that all magic follows specific rules. So far, the best covered is Rey's Demonic Possession — e.g. he's able to occupy a toy simply because it has eyes.
    • Reynardine is also bound in the wolf toy and forced to obey Antimony because it has her symbol on it, which is why he hasn't just jumped to something else.
    • Also, when Coyote gives away a power, it gains a side effect it didn't have when Coyote had it, like Ysengrin's artificial tree-body and his atrophied real body, and the fact that if Renard takes over a body, it dies when he leaves and the original owner is extinguished when he enters.
      • There's also the fact that any power Coyote gives, he can't use until he takes it back.
  • Magic Versus Science: Mostly because their philosophical disagreement between their practitioners. Ironically, mixing the methodologies seems to bring the most impressive results and according to a history lesson by Jones may have been the Court's purpose in the first place.
  • Magical Underpinnings of Reality: Where psychopomps are concerned.
  • Meaningful Echo:
    "I'll save you, little girl!"
  • Meaningful Rename: The fox Trickster's proper name is Renard. "Reynardine" he got from Surma. When she played with him. Which changed his life, eventually bringing him into the story's situation.
  • Mechanical Evolution: The robots are an inversion: they evolved into simpler forms over time. Their creator was a genius, and the designs of his first generation of robots defied understanding; so after he died, the robots had to simplify their designs in order to maintain themselves.
  • Memento MacGuffin:
    • Annie's pendant, and later the photo of her parents as children... and the toy wolf.
    • Surma's gift James always carries with him. "Handy and practical".
  • Misfit Mobilization Moment: Occurs in "Residential", when the Queslett students band together to find out where their classmates have been disappearing to.
  • Moment of Weakness: Annie and Reynard do this to each other in chapter 31.
  • Mood Whiplash: Typically occurs for both the characters (i.e. as a narrative trope) and the readers at the same time.
  • Mundane Utility: The blinker stones' amplifying powers have a wide variety of uses, including signal rocket and instant campfire; Annie has used hers as a torch and a psychic walkie-talkie, among other things.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Girl riding fox-possessed toy Big Badass Wolf. Tree-armed wolf humanoid. A cab pulled by robot horse quoting Milton's Paradise Lost. Lawn-mowing and fire prevention via laser cows. A meteorology robot in a form of head-sized praying mantis. Proselytizing parkour robot.
  • Non Answer: If you ask any of the court's residents how the court was built, they will just say that the founders made it. If you ask anyone else who might know, all they will say is that "It grew from the Seed Bismuth".
  • Noodle Incident: The cursed teapot.
    Antimony: We've seen worse. What about that cursed teapot?
    Kat: Yeah, but that was... I.. I don't even KNOW what that was about.
  • Oh Crap: A Giant Enemy Crab Kat believes Annie arranged as an apology ? Creepy, but manageable. Noticing that Annie is staring in horror and clearly had nothing to do with it? Yeah, time to be scared. Complete with Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises.
    • Kat's father is very happy when he realizes that the coded message Antimony's father sent makes sense once you include him saying Antimony's name at the start. Untill he realizes the Unfortunate Implications this has for an already upset Annie.
  • Our Demons Are Different: Reynardine, and Zimmy were called demons at some point. No guarantee in the first case it was not a popular simplification and the second was confirmed to be only an invective.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: Rogat Orjaks ("horned giant" in Slovenian) are explicitly stated to be dragon-kin, but not the same as "usual" dragons. One is quoted making a distinctly Take That remark on the subject of "those [common dragons]".
  • Our Fairies Are Different: "Regional Fairies" are so-called because they have spots on their shoulders showing which "region" they're from. They learn little kinds of magic (like rusting metal) and are said to come of age when they make their own clothes. "Red" and "Blue" are the only ones introduced in the main story. Others appeared only after becoming humans, as students in the Foley house.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: Mort, the Ghost with the Sword, and the boy in the hospital are all different from each other. It will probably all be explained eventually. Also, a blind man's ghost mentioned by Kat in her letters over the summer break.
  • Overly-Long Gag: Red's ridiculous reaction to Blue wanting to hang out with her lasts one whole page, dedicated to the Red simply going "PPPPBBBTTTTHHHHHPPBPTHTHHHH"
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Annie said she was clearly a robot. Just look at her antennae! And robots never lie.
  • Parental Abandonment: After Surma's death, Annie's father sends her to Gunnerkrigg Court and then vanishes without bothering to tell her. We are told that she will not hear from him again for two years. Every so often we see beneath Annie's stoic facade to see how much this hurts her. There are hints here and there that he might have always been distant (to everyone but Surma).
  • Perspective Magic: Coyote uses this, being one of the fundamental trickster deities.
  • Pop Cultural Osmosis Failure:
    Kat:"I love the Princess Mononoke look you got going on!"
    Antimony:"My what?"
  • Quote Mine: The Arc Words mentioned above:
    Diego: She died. And I did nothing.
  • Random Teleportation: Parley had that going on for a while.
  • Rant Inducing Slight: Occurs a few times, with Kat's rant in "A Bad Start", provoked by, well, a bad start to her day, and Annie and Rey's fight in "Fire Spike", beginning with Annie's copying of homework.
  • Relationship-Salvaging Disaster: Deliberately invoked by Annie in "From The Forest She Came". Hilarity Ensues.
  • Rescue Romance:
    • Subverted in chapter 34.
  • The Reveal: Happens a lot.
  • Roof Hopping: Eglamore; Robot S13's parkour-capable new body.
  • Rotating Arcs
  • Rule Of Cool: Laser cows.
    Just like real cows! Only with lasers.
  • School Uniforms are the New Black: Averted, but played straight for the students who used to be creatures that lived in the forest.
  • Science Fair: Chapter 5.
  • Secret Legacy: Everything we learn about Annie's parents suggests that she's following in their footsteps. Kat has inherited a thing or two as well.
  • Sex Dressed: Relax, it was with Mr. and Mrs. Donlan.
  • Shadow Archetype: The recurring theme of duality in the narrative makes this fairly common in both characters and other elements of the world, though it's sometimes difficult to tell who or what the 'shadow' is.
  • Shrine To The Fallen: Diego and his robots have one for Jeanne. Overlaps with Stalker Shrine, considering how he acted towards her when she was alive.
  • Shapeshifting: Coyote can change his shape at will, usually by stretching himself.
  • Signs of Disrepair: John and Margo, looking for a replacement mandolin, came across a closet marked :Cursed instruments.
  • Sorkin Relationship Moment: A non-romantic version. Kat calls out Antimony and Reynardine's awkwardness, and demands that they be friends again. While holding a pair of wire strippers.
  • Something Completely Different: Chapter 10: "Dr. Disaster vs. the Creepy Space Aliens from Outer Space".
  • Splitting The Arrow: "Fancy shooting" as performed by Janet and Willy.
  • The Stinger: At the end of Chapter 3.
  • Stylistic Suck: the "City Face" storyline (and a sequel: "City Face #2") which are portrayed in simplistic white and black (as opposed to the rest of the comic which is highly detailed and painstakingly colored). The dialog has a unique flavor (i.e. highly awkward and stilted, but apropos for the characters in question), and the overall effect is...interesting. The comments below each strip are part of the joke (presumably written by the author) and patterned as a mockery of internet flame wars. Strangely, despite the odd style and superfluous plot, the "City Face" storyline (and presumably the "City Face #2" storyline as well) are not merely filler: the events and characters in them are considered to be canon.
  • Strong Family Resemblance: Annie and Surma. Strong enough that Ethereal beings occasionally confuse them, and Eglamore calls Annie by her mum's name in the heat of the moment.
    • Turns out there's a reason for this: Annie and Surma are descended from fire elementals, and as soon as Annie was born she began absorbing her mother's spirit.
  • Summon To Hand: The Blinker Stone allows its owner to do this.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: The situation does not involve a large monster or two.
  • Survival Mantra:
    "Always remember one thing..."
  • Switching P.O.V.: Mind Screwy version where we, without warning, switch away from Antimony and to a character who believes herself to be someone else.
  • Take Off Your Clothes: Invoked by Jack, but denied.
  • Tears from a Stone: "Kat forgot to mention the docking station also has tear glands".
  • Teleport Spam: Bip. Bip. Bip.
  • Tempting Fate: Invoked once (which in itself, of course, counts as a straight use).
  • They Died Because of You: Delivered in a devastating, defensive rant by Reynardine to Annie. The effect is instantaneous, and doubles as a Wham Line.
  • Time Stands Still: Coyote can do this if he wants to.
  • Tongue Tied:
    Coyote: If you tell anyone in the forest about the tooth, even Ysengrin, this bind will snip off your hand.
  • Trickster Mentor: Seems to be the Court's established modus operandi, at least to a degree: it's the playground for the individual initiative, even if it's occasionally acting "against" the rules or teachers. The unwritten rules seem to include "It's your project, tell me when you finish it" and "Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught". They also teach reasonable level of cooperation.
    • They have security measures clearly designed to provide a reasonable level of challenge for students inevitably bypassing them, such as obvious and regularly hacked motion detectors, or security robots that we saw circumvented with tricks, hacking and plain outrunning — compare this to their outrageously advanced and subtle technologies like the tracking system.
    • Giving less than waterproof mundane explainations for weird events with a straight face — that's combined with teaching good enough to reap mad scientist grade inventions.
  • Unfortunate Implications: In universe: The first time Annie's father contacts her in years and it turns out to be a coded message. A coded message that doesn't make sense unless you include her father calling her name at the start of that message.
    Annie: So... my name was just part of the message? He wasn't really calling me at all?
  • The Unreveal: Ysengrin told Annie what Jones was. Or tried to. We, however, were not privy to that conversation.
  • Visible Sigh: Antimony didn't ruin Red's life.
  • Wham Episode: So much that it has its own page.
  • Wham Line: Pretty much three in a row from the aforementioned Chapter 31.
    • First off, Antimony to Reynardine:
      Antimony: She never loved you.
    • Reynardine's reply:
      Reynardine: You are the reason Surma died!
    • Finally, Coyote's own revelation to Antimony:
      Coyote: Don't tell me no one has told the girl she isn't exactly human!
    • When Annie tells Kat about her mother in Chapter 21:
      Muut: The day Surma died...none of us came to take her.
      Annie: I had to do it myself.
    • Annie's first word in her telephone conversation at the end of Chapter 36.
      Annie:: ... Father?
  • What Could Possibly Go Wrong?:
  • What the Hell, Hero?:
    • Reynardine learning about the Memento MacGuffin bit.
    • Later, Jack delivers one when Annie tries to set him up for heartbreak to hurt him for something he did while he was possessed and thus had no control over.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: What to do if a robot fancies you. Considering all the Court's robots are "descendants" of a lovesick inventor, this probably happens a lot.
  • Whole Chapter Flashback: Chapter 16, "A Ghost Story", Chapter 22, "Ties", Chapter 25, "Sky Watcher and the Angel".
  • Wrong Name Outburst: Mr. Eglamore shouting "Surma!" This was not a flashback chapter.
  • You Do NOT Want To Know: Perhaps it would be better for Kat if she thought longer than a split-second before answering:
    Kat: Say, uh... I don't see him.
    Annie: Do you want to?
  • You Imagined It: Annie's early Adults Are Useless approach wasn't quite unwarranted.
  • Your Mind Makes It Real: Zimmy's little Crapsack World is a sort of collective dream: participants go there and back without anyone else ever noticing.
    Zimmy: It's only as real as you let it be.

    Characters 
For a more complete rundown, see the spoileriffic Character Sheet.

    Meta 

Girls With SlingshotsWebcomics Long RunnersJack
Guilded AgeFantasy WebcomicsHalflight
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alternative title(s): Gunnerkrigg; Gunnerkrigg Court
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