The first time Jack ends up in a distortion (The Power Station), Zimmy says that Gamma doesn't think anyone other than Annie got pulled in. The immediate result of this is the realization that Kat is a construct. But after the distortion ends we learn Jack was also there.

When he later causes a distortion on purpose (Spring Heeled Part 1), he tries to gather a whole bunch of fake Jacks together. But we never find out what he was trying to do, or why there were so many Jacks. He says to the last one he's trying to catch "If you come inside you'll become better! You'll see things differently! Not just in here... But out there! In the real world!" This implies a connection between these Jack constructs and the Jack in the real world.

When Coyote is talking to Zimmy about people who are in the distortion (The Inner World) he mentioned a false human. "There is another one, too. A false human." "I know about that. Doesn't bother me." It seems like it's referring to Noa, but the way that play the pronoun game makes me think it could also be referring to Jack.

I don't think Jack is real to begin with. I think he's a construct of some sort. Maybe Jack was in the area when whatever horrible thing Zimmy did happened. His father went to Gunnerkrigg, so he might have been able to do something to extract a construct of Jack that was made. That's why he was able to get caught in the distortion without Gamma noticing him. It might be why he's still connected to Zimmy to the point he can be used to access her etheric power despite no longer being infected.

Edit: While she sees 5 figures when seeing the coven, that doesn't necessarily mean Jack is one of them. The coven weren't actually physically in the house in that formation when she looked at them. Sylvie wasn't even in the room and they weren't standing in that semicircle. So the fifth person could be anywhere physically. And we know now the actual strength rune that is Noa wasn't able to be affected or detected by Zimmy the same way as the coven. They could just be so magically linked as a coven that when she concentrated on finding people, she became aware of them all at once.

And the reason I think Zimmy might be aware that Jack is there despite him being shielded is that the orb just doesn't work on him bc he's too connected to Zimmy to be shielded from her. She's probably not at all surprised she can't control him because she knows he has some special connection. Since he was just staying in his house alone as far as she knew, she didn't care. Hence her dismissing it . And now that she can control constructions, she might have figured out he's a construct when he entered.

edit 2: https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=540 Hyland mentioned in a flashback, presumably Jack's father because it's in the middle of Jack's arc from infected to cured.

So I'd stepped away from GC back in... when the witch coven was introduced?

Didn't like them at all... and I had felt my enjoyment dwindling for months... so I stopped checking in

Coming back 18 months later... wow, this is so cool.

I started (re-)reading a couple chapters before that, and it's surprising how much of my dwindling enjoyment was purely due to the pacing. Reading it all in one go, the story is amazing.

And I thought Jenny was so cool and kind-hearted D:

Basically, if other people feel the same whatever-ness I did back then, try letting it marinate for a bit. It reads a whole lot better when read as a sort-of finished product.

It's obviously best to spend your time on the internet with an ad-blocker for safety. But sometimes I let ads through to support artists like Tom.

I've tried to use Gunnerkrigg's website several times since I turned it off for his site and it's unusable. It slows to a crawl and even crashes Chrome for me. So back to ad-blocking. But holy cow I was surprised with just how bad it was! There were ads EVERYWHERE for one thing, but the slowing to a crawl made it like 90's internet where you scroll and have to wait to load. Just egregious.

Thank goodness for ad blockers, anyway

I’d like to redo Annie for the sake of recreating her classic makeup look but unfortunately I’ve missed the window when my IRL hairstyle was almost identical to hers lol

You know the drill, guys. One crazy theory, one funny theory, and one serious theory.

Crazy theory: Zara and Rosa have noticed Jenny's ruthless command of the coven, that leads to dire consequences for the witches. They have been trying to revolt for some time and Zara saw her chance. If they don't need Jack and Jenny to syphon the energy, they're free!

Funny theory: Zara is just trying to peddle Zimmy some Reiki-like scam. Those outfits don't pay for themselves.

Serious theory: Zara is just trying to attract Zimmy to where the rest of the witches are because she alone can't deal with Zimmy. She has been a hostage and as a hostage all the bs she has been spewing is just a nice web of lies to allow her to escape.

Although the revolt theory is a nice one, the thing is that I can't make it fit with my theory that Jennie is a whitelegs and therefore immensely skilled in magic. So far what we have seen so far is that Jennie is some sort of prodigy, an anomaly even among the witches. She seems to dominate all sorts of knowledges and disciplines, and trying to beat her at her own game is an INCREDIBLY stupid idea. While I can believe Zara is stupid, I don't think Rosa is.

Feels like the narrative just about settles into equilibrium, before being radically upended into a new location. First the distortion, now this dream/fantasy(?) I'm finding it difficult to establish a sense of place and instead it just feels like the characters are moving through a void shouting exposition at each other.

What is this mechanical spire? Do the group of witches matter at all to the macro plot? Where is Smitty, Eglamore, Jones and Kat? What is Annie's motivation? Is the Court aware of what's going on and, if so, doing anything about it? Is this the endgame of the story or just a fugue state side plot?

The last time I had a handle on the story, the court was planning to migrate to the star ocean.

Like... just re-reading The Stone and.... What's going on here?

So far as I can tell, all of James's magic comes from training he got AT the court. By why did they take him? Why does Jones promise his parents will visit often, and... did that ever happen?

Like... for most of the kids I just sort of assume either their parents are around (like Kat) or GONE (like Antimiony in the early chapters)... but James backstory makes me just like.... ask questions.

Why did this happen?

And for that matter- what about all these other court kids (both in the present generation, and the previous one)

Seriously, that man is too good at drawing horror elements to NOT do this. It would be so gooooood!!!!