A Tic-toc is a kind of robotic bird, found throughout Gunnerkrigg Court. They get their name from the ticking noise their internal mechanisms create. Originally, no one knew who built them, or what purpose they serve, but it was later revealed that they were created by Katerina Donlan from the future. They are speculated to be some sort of surveillance network.
They look something like a cross between a toucan and a parrot, with green feathers and a metallic grey beak. Despite the ominous ticking noise they make, their likeness to birds is strong enough that they were only discovered to be robots after Antimony Carver autopsied one of them.
Mostly, they wait in out-of-the-way places and observe other characters, though on one occasion, they intervened to save Antimony from falling to her death.
On the character page, in below-comic comments, and in the forum, Antimony and Tom Siddell refer to them as Tictocs. Gamma once called them The Thousand Eyes; most other characters just refer to them as "those birds". They were first referred to by the name "tic-toc" in the comic on Chapter 25, Page 15. The robots called them "the tic-toc. A mythical ornithonic said to be older than the court itself." They also reveal that tic-tocs were not built by Diego, but rather some "divine being", who it later turned out was actually Katerina Donlan from the future.
Their components seem to grow like a plant when they're buried, which may imply a relation between them and the Seed Bismuth, the mysterious object with which the Court was supposedly created.
Appearances[]
- Chapter 1, Page 13
- Chapter 3, Page 16
- Chapter 7, Page 2
- Chapter 11, Page 2
- Chapter 11, Page 14
- Chapter 14, Page 19
- Chapter 15, Page 16 (mentioned)
- Chapter 18, Page 38 (Mentioned and representation)
- Chapter 25, Page 15 (drawing and mentioned)
- Chapter 76, Page 20