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Annotations Every Day - Written by T Campbell & Flo Kahn - Illustrated by John & Jason Waltrip

Knowing is not understanding.

Chapter 35 – Page 37

on December 11, 2014
Chapter: Chapter 35
└ Tags: Frigg, Gravedust, Penk
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Discussion (94) ¬

  1. tjk
    tjk
    December 11, 2014, 12:06 am | # | Reply

    gaining actual quasi-omniscient insight into the universes mechanizations behind a loved one’s eradication from reality is a horrific mind breaking ordeal.

    • biggmac
      biggmac
      December 11, 2014, 12:20 am | # | Reply

      Eschew obfuscation.

    • Lexible
      Lexible
      December 11, 2014, 12:28 am | # | Reply

      Eh… you get over it….

    • Anvildude
      Anvildude
      December 11, 2014, 4:47 pm | # | Reply

      Watching your buddy get disintegrated is heavy stuff.

  2. Insufferable Nerd
    Insufferable Nerd
    December 11, 2014, 12:10 am | # | Reply

    They’re called emotions. They hit you like a tonne of bricks.

    • MonkTHAC0
      MonkTHAC0
      December 11, 2014, 3:22 pm | # | Reply

      Or in this a Frigg ton of bricks. Play on words here. Free inter-webs cookie to who gets it right first! And by inter-webs cookie I mean death. SO FREEEEEEEEEEE DEAAAAAAAATH! Whoo!

  3. Gram91
    Gram91
    December 11, 2014, 12:10 am | # | Reply

    Anyone else notice a ‘KA-FEELS’ hitting them?

    • MidnightDStroyer
      MidnightDStroyer
      February 19, 2017, 2:43 pm | # | Reply

      “And my eyes are leaking.”
      ~The Grinch

      • Nechyfer
        Nechyfer
        April 23, 2019, 10:37 am | # | Reply

        I have read this a few times over the past years, and it still “makes my eyes pour”…. Rachel😭

  4. Jean-Luc
    Jean-Luc
    December 11, 2014, 12:14 am | # | Reply

    When you suffer from emotional constipation giving a shit is hard.

    • biggmac
      biggmac
      December 11, 2014, 12:23 am | # | Reply

      Then you feel like a turrd. Then you feel flushed.

      • Lexible
        Lexible
        December 11, 2014, 12:30 am | # | Reply

        Frigg’s just realizing it’s time for her dumps.

        • smilr
          smilr
          December 11, 2014, 8:15 am | # | Reply

          Even though it will all probably work itself out in the end, let’s keep this streak going!

          • Yuugian
            Yuugian
            December 11, 2014, 9:10 am | # | Reply

            I don’t know, it already looks kind of stained and may well be circling the drain

            • MidnightDStroyer
              MidnightDStroyer
              December 11, 2014, 3:30 pm | # | Reply

              Why do I get the feeling that someone’s going to try finding a lawyer to sewer?

  5. biggmac
    biggmac
    December 11, 2014, 12:19 am | # | Reply

    Others around Frigg: No words are appropriate. Not right this second.
    Just be there … be there for her and suffer with her.

    • Chantelune
      Chantelune
      December 11, 2014, 3:54 am | # | Reply

      Or serves as punchingballs for Frigg while she get it out of her system. :p

      • wwlaos
        wwlaos
        December 11, 2014, 11:39 am | # | Reply

        I winced as I read “punchingballs.”

  6. Braineater
    Braineater
    December 11, 2014, 12:21 am | # | Reply

    For some reason this makes me think of Bandit.

    Something was really off about the way she came back. And we have learned nothing about that.

    • nemui
      nemui
      December 11, 2014, 4:27 am | # | Reply

      Bandit was just killed by your regular run-of-the-mill foaming-at-the-mouth ax-wielding berserker. I’m guessing she respawned as any MMO player would.

      Rachel, on the other hand, was derezzed, whatever that means. She’s almost certainly coming back.

      • Benedikt
        Benedikt
        December 11, 2014, 5:08 am | # | Reply

        *not

        • nemui
          nemui
          December 11, 2014, 4:36 pm | # | Reply

          Um, yes, there’s a “not” inexplicably missing in the last sentence. Sorry.

      • Jimmy C
        Jimmy C
        December 11, 2014, 9:08 am | # | Reply

        If she does come back, though, she’ll be different. Maybe even unrecognizable. Who KNOWS how Frigg’s gonna work through that.

        • Speedy
          Speedy
          January 4, 2019, 8:09 pm | # | Reply

          She comes back as a guy. Frigg is happy, but E-merl’s brain melts. xD

  7. alicemacher
    alicemacher
    December 11, 2014, 12:22 am | # | Reply

    Frigg. ;__;

  8. Katlamos
    Katlamos
    December 11, 2014, 12:23 am | # | Reply

    Frigg… you break our hearts ;__;

  9. Thor
    Thor
    December 11, 2014, 12:28 am | # | Reply

    So…
    When does she re-spawn?

    Seriously, one has to wonder how this translates into the “real world” with her “player”.
    Does she get a message that her character file has been deleted?

    • CapnRis
      CapnRis
      December 11, 2014, 1:03 am | # | Reply

      Probably more like corrupted files, as the information would have just been ripped out of the system haphazardly. Odds are Rachel’s player will have to reinstall the game, if not her entire operating system, depending on the extent of the Beast’s influence.

    • jeffepp
      jeffepp
      December 11, 2014, 1:25 am | # | Reply

      It has been implied that, normally, a character that is killed, is gone. You make a new PC, and move on. The main characters, however, somehow came back, and this is part of what pushed H.R. into insanity.

    • Logos
      Logos
      December 11, 2014, 1:27 am | # | Reply

      Considering the way not-controlled-by-test-tube-people characters react to death, I wonder if the death system in Arkerra is permanent.

      And all the players get really into roleplaying.

      Actually that sounds really cool.

    • starkruzr
      starkruzr
      December 11, 2014, 7:23 pm | # | Reply

      I actually really thought Rachel was an NPC.

  10. Jack Vermicelli
    Jack Vermicelli
    December 11, 2014, 12:30 am | # | Reply

    She can’t even.

  11. Matthew Davis
    Matthew Davis
    December 11, 2014, 12:48 am | # | Reply

    So what is rather than a paladin of the Heart of All, Frigg is the Heart of All? Much has been made of the idea that Rachel worshipped Frigg, but what if it was literal and nobody realized it until her death?

    • Matthew Davis
      Matthew Davis
      December 11, 2014, 12:48 am | # | Reply

      *if, even.

    • Speedy
      Speedy
      January 4, 2019, 9:02 pm | # | Reply

      Hey! You might really be on to something, there! What if each of the Five is bringing something “human” into the game?

      Frigg – the heart (passion, all the feels, the sense of right and wrong – free of rules and legal mumbo jumbo)
      Gravy – the soul (the essence of what makes a person a person, the afterlife
      Syr’Nj – the mind (politics, planning, foresight)
      Byron – the spirit (the fire, the rage, the team spirit)
      Best – the pride (sense of self worth, goals to strive for)

      And, though not officially part of the five:
      Bandit – spunkiness, slyness, cleverness, in the field leadership

      I’m sure someone else has better words to describe what each of them brings. But, if this is true, what will the people who get put in the two new tanks bring?

      The story almost seems like a twist on The Wizard of Oz. The characters aren’t just finding the missing parts of themselves, they’re bringing those parts into the game.

      • Speedy
        Speedy
        January 4, 2019, 9:07 pm | # | Reply

        Byron is also bringing self control. I wouldn’t be surprised if the anti-zerking serum that Syr’Nj created was a placebo.

  12. CARTOS
    CARTOS
    December 11, 2014, 1:07 am | # | Reply

    They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
    Though they go mad they shall be sane,
    Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
    Though lovers be lost love shall not;
    And death shall have no dominion.

  13. ZealusCub
    ZealusCub
    December 11, 2014, 1:51 am | # | Reply

    Hmm, I wonder if Rachel really is dead, did the beast delete the character from the game?

  14. neeks
    neeks
    December 11, 2014, 2:02 am | # | Reply

    Poor Frigg :(

    • Mujaki
      Mujaki
      December 11, 2014, 2:14 am | # | Reply

      Pardon me, neeks. But I must ask, what is your gravatar icon from?

  15. Pumpkin Cake
    Pumpkin Cake
    December 11, 2014, 2:16 am | # | Reply

    Oh, geez. When Rachel died, it didn’t really seem real. I don’t know why. Maybe because we didn’t really see it. But now, seeing Frigg react, it seems a whole lot worse.

  16. derpherp
    derpherp
    December 11, 2014, 2:21 am | # | Reply

    I wonder if Rachel will send her guildmates an E-merl to let them know what her new toon will be named?

    • wwlaos
      wwlaos
      December 11, 2014, 11:42 am | # | Reply

      Dammit derpherp… don’t make me chuckle at work.

      People look.

    • PoJoeRic
      PoJoeRic
      December 11, 2014, 2:25 pm | # | Reply

      She has to wait for a new chapter to find out, just like the rest of us.

  17. Devlerbat
    Devlerbat
    December 11, 2014, 2:38 am | # | Reply

    I’m not sure if PCs other than the Tube Five don’t normally come back. After all Bandit came back without Mystic cheating. But even then the beast seems to delete your game data, meaning Rachel is still gone for good.

    • Aydr
      Aydr
      December 11, 2014, 2:36 pm | # | Reply

      Bandit never died.

      • Metus
        Metus
        December 11, 2014, 4:48 pm | # | Reply

        Hmm… She had two axes chopped far into her body, I’m unsure how she survived that… Also with the arena and surrounded by enemies… I’m kind of unsure how she’d ever escape/survive.

        • Speedy
          Speedy
          January 4, 2019, 9:24 pm | # | Reply

          The axes were drenched in Harky’s super regenerative blood, at the time she was chopped, so there’s a chance that she was just mostly dead. And, thanks to Miracle Max from Princess Bride, we know that mostly dead means a little bit alive. And, I’m too lazy to look up the whole quote, right now.

          Of course, it could be that Bandit’s player works for Hurricane Software or is a hacker, and made their character immortal.

  18. ThePuck1
    ThePuck1
    December 11, 2014, 3:00 am | # | Reply

    And that is called character growth. /slow clap

  19. Hertzy
    Hertzy
    December 11, 2014, 3:50 am | # | Reply

    Did Frigg just say she has a “GUI”? As in a Graphical User Interface?

    …Yes, I know I don’t have a soul. I exchanged it for cookies the other day, if you must know.

    • █████
      █████
      December 11, 2014, 4:08 am | # | Reply

      She feels it in her GUT.

      It’s just the way the font looks.

    • SamSam
      SamSam
      December 11, 2014, 5:22 am | # | Reply

      *No player named *xX66Rachel99Xx found, removed from friend list*

  20. nemui
    nemui
    December 11, 2014, 4:30 am | # | Reply

    OK, so Frigg does know. But what does she mean by “I just know she’s gone and not in the stupid way that we did but the real way that works and I just…”

    What stupid way like who did what? Is she referring to the Five’s dying and returning?

    • Benedikt
      Benedikt
      December 11, 2014, 5:10 am | # | Reply

      Yes. The difference between being dead and still belonging to the universe and being derezzed, unretrievable.

      • Chris
        Chris
        December 11, 2014, 8:57 am | # | Reply

        She logged out of the Matrix permanently.

    • Corker
      Corker
      December 11, 2014, 6:36 am | # | Reply

      I think it’s the ways of knowing that’s stupid/real. “The stupid way” is looking/seeing – it gets you the surface appearance of things. Frigg knows it “in her gut” – without having even been conscious, she ‘somehow’ knows, at a level that’s deeper and more real than merely having seen it.

      I don’t know if this is “friendship is magic” or “glowy hammershit is magic.” With her character arc, it could go either way.

      • wwlaos
        wwlaos
        December 11, 2014, 11:49 am | # | Reply

        Friendship is not magic. It is difficult and inconvenient and confusing and often heartbreaking. Especially when they’re still alive.

        • Eric
          Eric
          December 11, 2014, 3:46 pm | # | Reply

          Do what I do. Kill all your friends. Much less trouble then.

          Also, if you know a good taxidermist you can still go to movies and things with them, but they won’t do annoying things like talk.

        • Tsapki
          Tsapki
          December 11, 2014, 4:40 pm | # | Reply

          All those descriptions you gave apply fairly well to magic too. Ask any wizard who miscast a fireball.

        • Speedy
          Speedy
          January 4, 2019, 9:46 pm | # | Reply

          But, friendship is like magic. It always comes with a price. ;)

          You’ve gotta do a cost/benefit analysis, even when you don’t know what the costs or benefits are.

  21. Minando
    Minando
    December 11, 2014, 5:30 am | # | Reply

    I think I will never delete a character again.

    • Speedy
      Speedy
      January 4, 2019, 10:07 pm | # | Reply

      IKR! Thanks a lot, T! Thanks a lot, Phil! Thanks a lot, Waltrips!

      I mean, it’s not like I didn’t already feel guilty enough for the characters I’ve deleted. If I’m ever able to get back into gaming, I’m gonna have to buy a new character slot, every time a character doesn’t turn out the way I like.

      And, don’t even get me started on the guilt that’ll be piled on me, every time I frag a mob! Did they have family? Children? Did I just slaughter a pregnant abomination? How is a gamer supposed to sleep at night, after reading this awesome, amazing, touching, heart-wrenching work of art dreck? What has this webcomic done to me?!?! And, why do I love it so much?

  22. Washbourn
    Washbourn
    December 11, 2014, 7:01 am | # | Reply

    I….crying Frigg makes me very, very sad.

  23. Frigg_Fanboi
    Frigg_Fanboi
    December 11, 2014, 7:33 am | # | Reply

    Warn the taverns. I see large bar tabs and much broken furniture in the future

  24. Jim
    Jim
    December 11, 2014, 7:56 am | # | Reply

    Great strip today, folks. This arc has been terrific.

    • biggmac
      biggmac
      December 11, 2014, 3:51 pm | # | Reply

      Man, you said it. One of the best chapters ever. The last panel is one of the best panels ever. This chapter IS the best ever!

      • biggmac
        biggmac
        December 11, 2014, 6:25 pm | # | Reply

        2nd sentence wuz s’posed t’ say PAGE, not chapter.

  25. TFLatte
    TFLatte
    December 11, 2014, 8:08 am | # | Reply

    I’m not crying. You’re crying! Shut up! Don’t touch me! ;_;

  26. Nicolas Rei
    Nicolas Rei
    December 11, 2014, 8:12 am | # | Reply

    Just as a certain god has felt the loss of his followers and is filled with his ever growing rage, so to does Frigg feel the loss of her follower. Only she feels a deep sadness that will fuel her anger well past the immediate sensation of simple rage.

  27. John
    John
    December 11, 2014, 8:21 am | # | Reply

    Hey, Grave… I think she needs a long hug.

  28. CARTOS
    CARTOS
    December 11, 2014, 8:23 am | # | Reply

    • CARTOS
      CARTOS
      December 11, 2014, 8:28 am | # | Reply

      And we all know what amazing…talents…Frigg brings to a chess game. The Knight of the Heart of All does not yield. The Unyielding Open Heart does not perish. Frigg’s senechal will return. One needs only a little…faith…as Rachel might have said, or WILL say…

  29. DeePseudonym
    DeePseudonym
    December 11, 2014, 8:47 am | # | Reply

    I wonder if Frigg understands that without that “fuckin drum”, she never would have been able to get close enough to the beast to hammershit it’s eye to ded?
    She now owes her life to the worst two kinds of people, one, someone who has, up till now, been a sworn enemy (Penk) and two, someone who is dead (Rachel).
    For the one, it presents an almost unsolvable ethical conflict (Frigg has no morals, but ALL the ethics) and the other is literally a debt she can never repay. That’s gonna be fun later.

    • Korbl
      Korbl
      December 11, 2014, 12:35 pm | # | Reply

      I don’t think Frigg is pissed about the drum itself but rather that Penk did nothing until he got his drum, and it took so long. If he’d ran and got it himself, rather than taking the opportunity to be inspirational to a couple kids, he’d have had it a lot sooner, and would have been in the fight sooner, and Rachel may not have had to die, I’m sure is the way that Frigg would see it.

    • Eric
      Eric
      December 11, 2014, 3:50 pm | # | Reply

      Under the circumstances, I doubt Frigg gives a shit that the drum was necessary. She is grieving, she is angry, she will lash out at everyone, there is nothing useful to be said at a time like this.

  30. BFletch651
    BFletch651
    December 11, 2014, 8:51 am | # | Reply

    “If you look long enough into the void the void begins to look back through you.”

  31. DCB
    DCB
    December 11, 2014, 8:55 am | # | Reply

    Is…is her armor crying as well?

  32. Robtimus
    Robtimus
    December 11, 2014, 10:24 am | # | Reply

    Seeing Frigg cry is brutal. :-(

    • wwlaos
      wwlaos
      December 11, 2014, 11:51 am | # | Reply

      Brutal? Then will we soon have a Metalocalypse song about it?

  33. Mercutio
    Mercutio
    December 11, 2014, 1:12 pm | # | Reply

    Luckily for all involved I think that Penk will see this as mourning, not as a personal insult. I am also now a member of the Frigg/Penk shipdom. And if we see an iceburg…. RAMMING SPEED!!!

  34. Shyryly
    Shyryly
    December 11, 2014, 2:10 pm | # | Reply

    You need to put a bloody warning header on this sort of strip. Holy hells. I flipped to this in the middle of a brief pause in a business call and almost started bawling. ;_;

  35. Psolo Ghoti
    Psolo Ghoti
    December 11, 2014, 4:57 pm | # | Reply

    Oh, Frigg. If I didn’t have an aversion to getting punched in the face, I would hug you.

    I’ll just stand silently over here.

    -_-

  36. CARTOS
    CARTOS
    December 11, 2014, 6:28 pm | # | Reply

    Frigg’s last memory of Rachel is a chaste kiss upon the forehead and a magicked, healing touch.

    Just think on that, and feel, if thou have (unyielding heart) to feel.

    “Arms, take your last embrace. And, lips, O you
    The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
    A dateless bargain to engrossing death.”

  37. Constable
    Constable
    December 11, 2014, 7:51 pm | # | Reply

    This is an excellent character moment. I applaud you on Frigg’s reaction to Rachel’s loss. Very well penned and drawn.

  38. Bliggz
    Bliggz
    December 11, 2014, 9:57 pm | # | Reply

    Aaaw man… when Frigg breaks down, all the feels.

  39. Gin
    Gin
    December 12, 2014, 12:50 am | # | Reply

    Ouch, right in the feels… Poor Frig hasn’t got a clue how to handle emotions that don’t fall under righteously pissed-off. Price of impending divinity, I guess.

  40. Ahab
    Ahab
    February 14, 2015, 1:30 am | # | Reply

    Wait, what?! I thought everyone had forgotten it’s all a webcomic…

    • Ahab
      Ahab
      February 14, 2015, 1:31 am | # | Reply

      Meant that as a reply to Constable. Oog.

  41. ⁣
    ⁣
    February 16, 2015, 10:34 am | # | Reply

    on the bright side it was a meatspacer who got deleted(granted she just lost like…2/3 of her life from a 4 year period there but) not an npc or vat dweller

    so she basically has like…a videogame version of a soul

    • ⁣
      ⁣
      February 16, 2015, 10:34 am | # | Reply

      that can either reincarnate or ragequit and just show up at emeral’s player’s door(only to get all depressed when he turns out to be a 500lb woman who was only roleplaying and is now calling the cops)

      • ⁣
        ⁣
        February 16, 2015, 10:35 am | # | Reply

        but she seems good, so I’m sure she’ll be spared enlightenment/hell and opt for reincarnation

  42. DarknessShallFall
    DarknessShallFall
    October 25, 2017, 7:14 pm | # | Reply

    Frigg has been assaulted by the Cutting Onion Ninja’s and lost.

  43. Speedy
    Speedy
    January 4, 2019, 9:37 pm | # | Reply

    Rachel was doomed, as soon as she was seen using her glowy “iron fist”. Someone from Marvel saw it, and their lawyers sent Hurricane Software a decease and cyst order. (Trust me, you don’t wanna know what the “cyst” part involves)

  44. Speedy
    Speedy
    January 4, 2019, 10:40 pm | # | Reply

    “Well, speaking of my drum as you so eloquently did, I figured out that if you put one end of my drum up against your crotch, and pound on the other end… it’s pretty awesome.”

    “(remind me to try that sometime)… But… Rachel!… Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”

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Guilded Age is co-written by T Campbell & Flo Kahn, and illustrated by John Waltrip. Site design by Samantha Kyle. Fonts by Blambot.com.
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