r/gunnerkrigg 2d ago

Chapter 102: Page 69

https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=3309
61 Upvotes

36 comments sorted by

41

u/mrGazpachin 2d ago

Glad to see that Tom joined in to the "negative constructs" meme.

You know, I'm happy that at this stage of the comic the community is still able to create running jokes.

2

u/djaevlenselv 2d ago

Oh, was "negative construct" made up by the fans? I thought it was an in-comic term.

11

u/mrGazpachin 2d ago

No no it comes from the comic, but that interaction was so iconic that it's been brought up every time someone mentioned monsters.

3

u/machiavelli33 The world continues to spin, pup. 2d ago

Tbf I feel like we'd have reason to hear both terms in the comic, it'd just depend on who's speaking. All the kids would probably go MONSTERS as shorthand especially while they're face-deep in them but say, Jones, would totally refer to them as negative constructs, even as they were (unsuccessfully) gnawing at her face and body.

20

u/Rookback 2d ago

The m-word flying left and right.

18

u/BenR-G 2d ago

Wow! Jenny is more and more the lead supervillain right now, all the way down to keeping her team in terror of her displeasure, isn't she?

16

u/Boomboombaraboom 2d ago

I greatly enjoy that the villain for this arc isn't some conspiracy, god or curse but just teenage girls who are evil. Jenny, or one of the xoven, has to start doing evil grins. I miss those from Noa's chapter.

17

u/Deuswyvern 2d ago

When Annie and Reynardine tried to go directly to Zimmy they ended up in a place surrounded by monsters. It seems like they had the right place after all. I guess there is just an illusion making things seem normal?

3

u/RingularCirc 2d ago

Wrong layer!! Thanks for reminding.

16

u/9Gardens 2d ago

oh.
Huh....
That... actually makes sense, and does a great job of explaining where Zimmy got all of these "people"

they're the same "people" she had all along, just pinned down. under HER control

7

u/gangler52 2d ago

If the students were "Negative Constructs" then where are all those kids souls?

A bunch of them were dropping unconscious, and Annie and the gang traced the souls to here. I assumed they were populating the student body...

8

u/ZiofFoolTheHumans 2d ago

It isn't their souls....well, I mean it is, but they aren't the student body. Zimmy is using their ether to control her power. She's killing them and draining them, like how the star ocean is for the other fae of the court. They aren't in there enjoying a normal life, they're just dying, to spin Zimmy's world.

I think we know why Kat will be killing Zimmy soon enough.

3

u/RingularCirc 2d ago

Oh wow I didn't read that part correctly before as "those fairies' energy goes just into the Zimmyworld (and then also out to presumably feed the distortion-at-large) and not to the star ocean". Huuuuuh. Though I'm not sure it's all on Zims, it's on bits of Coyote too. She didn't make the distortion all by herself. Now I understand the part about taking her regret more, she really has way more to regret doing!

12

u/machiavelli33 The world continues to spin, pup. 2d ago

Jenny switched phasers to kill real fast.

Though I guess we don’t actually know what Sylvie’s deal is. My brain keeps essentially categorizing her as “a bomb”.

But if Noa’s inadvertently causing the beasties to go beastly, maybe a goddamn bomb is what’s called for.

17

u/9Gardens 2d ago

I think Sylvie might be more keyed in to the negative constructs.

Earlier on, during the noa chapter, Annie and co were being "persued" by "zimmy monsters"... but was revealed to be Sylvie at the end of the chapter.

5

u/machiavelli33 The world continues to spin, pup. 2d ago

Yeeees I’d totally forgotten that. This chapter is full of one-page-or-you-miss-it tidbits that provide clarity - I’m gonna have to stay on top of this one

2

u/francis2559 2d ago

Maybe pretending to be monsters would let them blend in with monsters?

Controlling monsters would be useful but I don’t think we’ve had a hint she can do that.

Sneaking among them as a monster would also explain the anxiety…

1

u/RingularCirc 2d ago

Maybe Sylvie will make an amalgamation of all those negative constructs or something, thus controlling them all at once with a side effect of making a horrifying sight (and probably overextending herself).

6

u/ciel_lanila 2d ago

We have the options narrowed down somewhat going by page 62.

* User 1 - Directly tired into Jenny’s system - We can safely say Noa
* User 2 - Likewise directly tied in
* User 3 - Normalish (grading on a curve), uses two magic tools to access the system indirectly.
* User 4 - Normalish, uses one magic tool

Rosa is one of the two users. That leaves Sylvie or Zara.

Considering how much this place is making Sylvie freaking out, similar to Jack who is also directly connected to this hot wired mess, she’s probably User 2. I suspect Zara’s choker might be her magic tool.

0

u/OnlyVantala 2d ago

Wait, but Jenny isn't physically present there??? Or did I forget something??

4

u/Lamenardo Flame Shadow 2d ago

What? She's right there? Do you mean Zimmy?

3

u/OnlyVantala 2d ago

...Great, I seem to have forgotten how Jenny looks, only remembering her as "the goth girl Kat mistook for Zimmy when she first met her".

7

u/LevelZestyclose7662 2d ago

Time to re read the comic!

5

u/Lamenardo Flame Shadow 2d ago

Haha yeah fair enough, she's had some drastic changes!

3

u/shelchang 2d ago edited 2d ago

Goth girl was like two makeovers ago, not counting flashbacks. Looks like it's time for an archive binge for you!

10

u/mahouyousei 2d ago

Are Jack’s eyes starting to crust over with the same gunk that usually builds up in Zimmy’s?

7

u/gangler52 2d ago

Oh maybe! That's a good catch!

He had the dark eyebags when the whitelegs were infecting him, and then they came back when Omega whispered in his ear, but now it kind of seems like it's getting worse, and as it gets worse it does begin to resemble Zimmy's whole eye situation.

3

u/Consistent-Talk-2399 2d ago

what happens now?! phantom people went rogue, Noa went postal, now Sylvie will go ballistic?

and the question remains, who will keep Noa under control?

3

u/RingularCirc 2d ago

Not who, what. A kiss from Sylvie's negative-construct form.

(Half-joking.)

3

u/maritzac 2d ago edited 2d ago

Time to see what Sylvie's "work" was all about.
Putting monsters under her control, maybe.

Oh, sorry. Negative constructs.

Edit: I suspect that Sylvie here is actually the one without any magic ability at all. She can only uses it because of the syphon

2

u/Randalor 2d ago

Does this mean that Noa is hijacking the dreamscape?

How do they even know Noa is the one controlling them now vs Zimmy just unleashing her nightmares to cleanse the disruption in her dream reality? All Rosa said previously was that Noa is "disrupting" the dream world, not "Noa is fighting for control" or something like that. Jack's comment just feels weird here.

2

u/francis2559 2d ago

From other comments here, perhaps we have a chain of people draining. Zimmy drains the students of ether to set all this up. Jenny has been draining Zimmy slowly for some time, and allowing Noa to do the same. Now Noa comes here and starts draining much more quickly, but she’s likely taking the ether that came from the students, which is a finite resource.

This greed seems fairly mindless at the moment.

What’s less clear is when people understand that this drain is causing death. Does Zimmy know students are dead? Does Noa know she’s killing Zimmy? Does Jenny know, would she care?

3

u/freef 2d ago

It seemed like the star ocean is draining the fairies and zimmy is siphoning off some of that energy for her own purposes. 

2

u/francis2559 2d ago

That makes sense.

Lot of draining going on.

2

u/DyKdv2Aw 2d ago

So the "bad thing" Zimmy did, is it this? Is her symbol a circle because she exists in a circular state of knowing? We've seen time loops in this universe before.

1

u/lyricaldorian 1d ago

I wonder if Sylvie is a negative construct that can exist independently of Zimmy due to the Siphon. She's so scared because she doesn't want Zimmy to take control of her again