Gunnerkrigg Court

I love the idea of buff!Parley, but right now her body looks weirdly detailed and realistic compared to her cartoony head. It's just slightly...off.

Uncanny valley, sure. It's partly that there's a little too much detail for the art style. Like drawing every wrinkle or tooth using the same line weight, it moves away from the representational. It's growing pains, art-wise, is what it is.

It does make some sense here, though. She's meant to be weathered after whatever Protector-of-the-Court training involves, and maybe kind of emaciated as well as buff, the way one might after putting on a lot muscle very quickly.

edited 2nd Jul '16 7:16:05 PM by Unsung

All thoughts on the new page went out of my head the moment I saw that last panel. Now I want tiny foam fingers to put on my fingers.

Not sure but I think those actually exist.

1692

Reviewed with love.

1693

A single thread on the pinky is usually sufficient, but why take chances?

Also, just red is booooooooring.

Oh dear, I don't like where this is going. That thought occurred to me after we saw the strings for the first time, but I didn't want to mention it because it's kind of uncomfortable to think about.

Yeah, but... it's like with Annie. Except, she sets things on fire when she lets herself go wild.

The problem is, Smitty most likely doesn't know what he does when he does his thing. Learning about it, however... should help him to learn how not to abuse it.

Right now, asking him to stop won't work. Because he doesn't know either how to stop or start: it's like breathing. It's a part of him, he just does it. :/

edited 6th Jul '16 2:21:44 AM by Euodiachloris

But didn't Smitty show that he was at least partially aware of the implications of his powers?

He knows that manipulating reality is dangerous, hence why he didn't just summon Parley when he missed her.

Maybe the lastest page's last panel is just a way of indicating that their fates are intertwined? The alternative implications are...disturbing.

edited 6th Jul '16 6:35:04 AM by GutstheBerserker

Isn't when 2 people hooking up called the Red String of Fate?

Maybe this is just their red strings binding.

She'll get busted down another grade for invasion of ethereal privacy.

The question now is wether or not Smitty subconciously manipulated fate so that he could be with Parley.

I very much doubt it. Parley was the one that was into him before he responded.

Eh. Hence subconsciously.

That doesn't really make sense though? I mean, I could see if you were arguing that he coerced himself into this, but otherwise I'm not seeing it.

Neither of them have to be manipulated, per se. His powers could have found him his true love/a woman he found hotter than hell/a woman who was going to drape herself all over him at every opportunity and then created the necessary circumstances for them to meet.

Weird subconscious fate manipulation abilities are always going to cause issues and questions about free will and crap.

I think Gunnerkrigg Court does have Free-Will, otherwise Tony was fated to be a total fuck-up.

But does it only exist because humans think it does?

Once you remove the element of free will. The idea of personal responsibility becomes... muddy. If everything is self determined and immutable then no matter what you do in life was already decided and you are doomed.

The power to... pull the strings of fate mean that fate can be altered, changed, plus look at the multiple strings, there are many fates for one person, but they must choose one themselves.

The nature of fate is probably some recursive, both-and-neither kind of situation, which may or may not ever be fully explained in the comic. If Coyote both put the stars in the sky and yet only came into existence when humanity started to believe in him, then time and causality must be hella complicated as it is.

edited 6th Jul '16 10:10:42 AM by Unsung

But was it your fate to manipulate fate?

Considering Annie's face in the last panel, I think the supposed takeaway here is "d'aw, their fates are intertwined" and not "holy shit Smitty reality warp'd her into it".

That's how I took it as well.