Gunnerkrigg Court: would you still "oh, robot" me if i was a worm

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > BSS: Bisexual Super Son > Gunnerkrigg Court: would you still "oh, robot" me if i was a worm

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Fister Roboto: Feb 21, 2008

I think Kat would be better off not being friends with someone who has flagrantly abused her trust, yes.

# ? Jun 9, 2015 06:45

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# ? May 17, 2024 04:16

Captain Oblivious: Oct 12, 2007; I'm not like other posters

Fister Roboto posted:

I think Kat would be better off not being friends with someone who has flagrantly abused her trust, yes.

This preoccupation with trust seems to mostly just be code for "incredibly self interested". Kat lacks that quality, and thus is able to determine the relative value of cheating to be very small in comparison to Annie's life being in the process of crashing down around her. Were the circumstances different, there might have been a stern talking to (almost certainly not resulting in any end of friendship regardless). But in the context of Anthony's shenanigans, it was neither the time nor the place. It would have only served to cause more harm. Specifically it would make this particular outcome more likely.

Combed Thunderclap posted:

I've posted this before, but in real life, the professional, peer-reviewed consensus is that even when a kid is genuinely failing, you do things like give them tutoring, or catch-up classes, or really anything other than holding them back to avoid the child from doing things like falling into a vicious spiral of self-loathing, social isolation, and public humiliation. I think we've moved on from this particular argument, but talking about how much people actually need math misses the point.

tl;dr stop being a loving robot who can only see black and white goddamn you are worse than boxbot

# ? Jun 9, 2015 06:54

JuniperCake: Jan 26, 2013

Fister Roboto posted:

It has nothing to do with academia. Trust is extremely important to me. I wouldn't have done the same thing in her shoes.

Everyone has their own standards by which they gauge others behavior based on their experiences and all that, that's okay. But you have to acknowledge in turn that other people might have different priorities than you.

The reason Kat is okay with it, is that she loves Annie (as a friend) and is more concerned about her happiness and well-being than her being honest in academics. Remember, Kat isn't a high academic achiever because she necessarily feels grades are valuable in of themselves. She's clearly pursues achievement because she loves knowledge and making things.

Given that, it makes a lot of sense that she doesn't really care that much that Annie copied her work and is more hurt by the fact that she feels Annie is suffering because of Anthony (with the constant humiliations and control he's exerting over her). Right or wrong, that's clearly how she sees the situation. For her, if anything is a betrayal then it's Annie's willingness to hand Renard over to someone Kat thinks will likely hurt or kill him. Though Annie giving Rey to her in spite of her dad helped to ease that conflict between them. If she didn't give him to Kat and something bad happened to Renard as a result, then yeah that would likely be a true betrayal as far as Kat as concerned and she might not forgive that.

Right or wrong people are more willing to forgive the people they love than say acquaintances. That's hardly a controversial thing. It might be different if the particular issue of cheating was important to Kat (like working hard to be top of the class was a cornerstone of her sense of self-worth or something), but it's clearly not. She just wants her best friend who's gone through so much poo poo to be okay.

JuniperCake fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Jun 9, 2015

# ? Jun 9, 2015 07:00

Fister Roboto: Feb 21, 2008

Captain Oblivious posted:

tl;dr stop being a loving robot who can only see black and white goddamn you are worse than boxbot

This is rich, considering that the entire time I've been posting during this chapter, people ITT have been yelling at me for seeing things differently than them.

And I'm sure that if I ever suggested that the truth could be somewhere in the middle, people would yell at me for that as well.

JuniperCake posted:

Everyone has their own standards by which they gauge others behavior based on their experiences and all that, that's okay. But you have to acknowledge in turn that other people might have different priorities than you.

The reason Kat is okay with it, is that she loves Annie (as a friend) and is more concerned about her happiness and well-being than her being honest in academics. Remember, Kat isn't a high academic achiever because she necessarily feels grades are valuable in of themselves. She's clearly pursues achievement because she loves knowledge and making things.

Given that, it makes a lot of sense that she doesn't really care that much that Annie copied her work and is more hurt by the fact that she feels Annie is suffering because of Anthony (with the constant humiliations and control he's exerting over her). Right or wrong, that's clearly how she sees the situation. For her, if anything is a betrayal then it's Annie's willingness to hand Renard over to someone Kat thinks will likely hurt or kill him. Though Annie giving Rey to her in spite of her dad helped to ease that conflict between them. If she didn't give him to Kat and something bad happened to Renard as a result, then yeah that would likely be a true betrayal as far as Kat as concerned and she might not forgive that.

Right or wrong people are more willing to forgive the people they love than say acquaintances. That's hardly a controversial thing. It might be different if the particular issue of cheating was important to Kat (like working hard to be top of the class was a cornerstone of her sense of self-worth or something), but it's clearly not. She just wants her best friend who's gone through so much poo poo to be okay.

Of course I know that people have different standards. I'm not an idiot. I understand why she forgave her, and I won't argue that it's not in character for her, but I find it hard to sympathize because that's not what I would have done. I've had to make some very difficult decisions in my life based on my friends' honesty or lack thereof. It's a subject that I feel very strongly about for personal reasons.

# ? Jun 9, 2015 07:15

JT Jag: Aug 30, 2009; #1 Jaguars Sunk Cost Fallacy-Haver

Fister Roboto posted:

I think Kat would be better off not being friends with someone who has flagrantly abused her trust, yes.

On the other hand they've both literally saved one another's lives multiple times and would die for one another, but hey, loving break it off over cheating.

# ? Jun 9, 2015 07:28

Captain Oblivious: Oct 12, 2007; I'm not like other posters

Look bro I know you literally rescued me from eternal perdition in the alternate reality spider zone, valuing my safety in that scenario above all else, but you cheated off my homework so gently caress you forever

A RATIONAL AND PROPORTIONATE RESPONSE

Fister Roboto posted:

Of course I know that people have different standards. I'm not an idiot. I understand why she forgave her, and I won't argue that it's not in character for her, but I find it hard to sympathize because that's not what I would have done. I've had to make some very difficult decisions in my life based on my friends' honesty or lack thereof. It's a subject that I feel very strongly about for personal reasons.

Non-robots are typically able to sympathize with things that they would not have done themselves, on some level. Barring ya know, genuinely monstrous acts.

# ? Jun 9, 2015 07:30

JuniperCake: Jan 26, 2013

Fister Roboto posted:

Of course I know that people have different standards. I'm not an idiot. I understand why she forgave her, and I won't argue that it's not in character for her, but I find it hard to sympathize because that's not what I would have done. I've had to make some very difficult decisions in my life based on my friends' honesty or lack thereof. It's a subject that I feel very strongly about for personal reasons.

Ah okay, I thought you were arguing that it was weird for Kat to not feel wronged by Annie's actions based on the events on the comic when you were actually arguing that based on your experiences that part of it was hard for you to accept. That makes sense. Didn't mean to imply anything ill, I just misunderstood. Sorry about that.

If you've had some bad personal experiences with friends and trust, of course stuff like that would definitely be something you'd pick up on and find jarring. It's definitely not a pleasant thing to go through.

# ? Jun 9, 2015 07:34

Fister Roboto: Feb 21, 2008

I didn't say that I couldn't sympathize with her, just that it's harder.

JuniperCake posted:

Ah okay, I thought you were arguing that it was weird for Kat to not feel wronged by Annie's actions based on the events on the comic when you were actually arguing that based on your experiences that part of it was hard for you to accept. That makes sense. Didn't mean to imply anything ill, I just misunderstood. Sorry about that.

If you've had some bad personal experiences with friends and trust, of course stuff like that would definitely be something you'd pick up on and find jarring. It's definitely not a pleasant thing to go through.

I really appreciate your understanding, thank you.

# ? Jun 9, 2015 07:37

EmmyOk: Aug 11, 2013

Jackard posted:

Not even the one with the redheaded men or the one where the killer uses snakes through the vent?

Was that the one with Vincent Spalding(?) convincing some red haired guy that all he had to do for some sweet cash was to transcribe the encyclopedia? That was pretty great

DontMockMySmock posted:

Like some people were saying upthread, most people don't use the stuff they learn in school later in life. You don't need to remember how to complete the square or who the gently caress Marco Polo was; if you ever cared, you could look it up and/or figure it out. But that doesn't mean that Annie can just blow off school and that's okay. This effortpost is for the people upthread who, in all seriousness, thought that it was okay for Annie to cheat and essentially blow off half of high school because she had other things going on (i.e. mediumhood). Fister Roboto is right about that poo poo, at least, and here's why. (Sorry for the wall of text; I give a huge poo poo about education.)

There's two reasons why all that poo poo you won't need to know is still important to learn in high school.

First, and most simple answer: practice. School is for learning how to learn. You might not remember Newton's Second Law in twenty years' time, but you need to learn how to solve problems, to think critically, to reason logically, and to figure out how to do things you've never done before. That's why there are such things as "elective" classes - the school wants you to learn SOMETHING, they don't give a poo poo WHAT. They want you to practice learning. And if you're learning photography, or wood shop, or a foreign language - they don't give a poo poo. Anything to exercise your brain.

Of course, there are certain courses that they do, in fact, make everyone take - a couple years of math, some english lang/lit, history, etc. This is for the second reason. Up above, I said that "most" people didn't use that information later in life. Well, it turns out, when you're fifteen you're pretty lovely at predicting what you want to be doing when you're twenty-five. Some kids want to take math, some don't; some of the kids will need advanced math ten years down the line, some won't. The problem is that those two groupings are not the same.

For example, I have a coworker who is 33 years old. He blew off math when he was young, behaved generally hooligan-ly through his early twenties, and then suddenly realized that he was an adult and math was awesome and he had missed out on a decade of opportunities. He's just finished community college, where he was taking multivariable calculus, and is transferring to a university where he is going to study engineering. When he was in school, he would have loved to not have to take math; he was one of those kids constantly asking "when are we going to use this in real life?" He may have had other strengths in school, I don't know, but that's no reason to let him fail math. If the system hadn't failed him by allowing him to fail math and science, he'd be much better equipped to achieve his adult dream of being an engineer.

So that's why it's important that high schoolers get a wide breadth of education. It may seem cruel to force something on students when 90% of them won't ever use it again, but it's even crueler to not force it on the 10% who will.

For those two reasons, it's important that Annie actually accomplish her math and physics work. For those reasons, the cheating should have been stopped as soon as anyone noticed it. You can't just let a student learn to cheat and copy instead of learning to think, and you can't just let a student's skills wither away, no matter what their destiny seems like now. Just because Annie finds medium-ing to be important and math to be unimportant now, doesn't mean that she won't regret that ten years down the line. The court may have noticed it and not cared; this makes them deficient as a school and as care-givers to children.

Now that it's been a whole year, it's more complicated. Anthony's solution is also ridiculous, for the reasons many in this thread have noticed. Becoming a pariah at age 14/15 or however the gently caress old she is is unacceptable. Holding someone back a year is a surefire way to stunt their education even further. Anthony might mean well in this regard, but he's an idiot if he thinks he's helping his daughter. Furthermore, the way he instituted this plan was downright abusive (this sentence is where I depart from agreement with Fister Roboto).

There are better solutions. Summer school would have been great, if it weren't for the fact that Anthony showed up too late for that. At the very least, for most of her classes, she should have stayed with her classmates. With math, that'd be hard, because of the way math builds on itself; she could maybe go to the math class for the previous year. For all her classes, she could make up for lost time with summer school or private tutelage.

tl;dr: Multiple choice question: what should be done about Annie's cheating?
a. ignore it and let annie be a dumb butt who can't do high school math
b. isolate her from her friends and force her to become a math-robot
[c.] literally anything the gently caress else

A thoroughly great post.

Is the hand Anthony lost on the same side as the bind Coyote put on Annie's hand?

# ? Jun 9, 2015 12:41

Saoshyant: Oct 26, 2010

EmmyOk posted:

Is the hand Anthony lost on the same side as the bind Coyote put on Annie's hand?

Yes, both of their right hands.

# ? Jun 9, 2015 12:43

Kikas: Oct 30, 2012

I think that if Tony had his hand cut off by Coyote's bind, he would have been, so to speak, "impressed". Which we know he wasn't, thanks to Word of Tom.

# ? Jun 9, 2015 12:45

EmmyOk: Aug 11, 2013

Kikas posted:

I think that if Tony had his hand cut off by Coyote's bind, he would have been, so to speak, "impressed". Which we know he wasn't, thanks to Word of Tom.

I don't think Coyote snipped it I'm just curious about the parallel.

# ? Jun 9, 2015 12:53

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Captain Oblivious posted:

goddamn you are worse than boxbot

Guess who else is in "a vicious spiral of self-loathing, social isolation, and public humiliation"

# ? Jun 9, 2015 13:39

The Red Queen: Jan 20, 2007; You tricked me!

You said dis place was fun, but it ain't!

What if Anthony just came back to ask Jones to marry him

# ? Jun 9, 2015 15:10

Blackheart: Mar 22, 2013

Kikas posted:

I think that if Tony had his hand cut off by Coyote's bind, he would have been, so to speak, "impressed". Which we know he wasn't, thanks to Word of Tom.

nah maybe he just looked at the stump, shrugged and went "meh, I can get another"

# ? Jun 9, 2015 16:27

pksage: Jul 2, 2009; You are an experience!
Make sure you're a good experience.

EmmyOk posted:

I don't think Coyote snipped it I'm just curious about the parallel.

I've seen this parallel brought up before this page, but most people only have two hands, so losing a specific one is, unsurprisingly, a 50/50 chance. And it probably skews heavily toward your dominant hand across all the various ways to lose an extremity, like accidents or aetheric bone surgery. Could just be a coincidence.

# ? Jun 9, 2015 17:55

Captain Oblivious: Oct 12, 2007; I'm not like other posters

Jackard posted:

Guess who else is in "a vicious spiral of self-loathing, social isolation, and public humiliation"

...Boxbot? :ohdear:

# ? Jun 9, 2015 18:15

Itzena: Aug 2, 2006; Nothing will improve the way things currently are.; Slime TrainerS

Nuns with Guns posted:

sorry I feel asleep what were we arguing about

Oh gently caress you've exposed me... i actually hope that the last scene of the last panel is Annie turning into a car and driving Kat off into the sunset while the court burns

This is after the waltz scene in the flooded rose garden, right?

# ? Jun 9, 2015 18:49

Saoshyant: Oct 26, 2010

The day Gunnerkrigg Court turns into Utena is the day I will truly find happiness.

# ? Jun 9, 2015 19:34

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Captain Oblivious posted:

...Boxbot?

Please be more considerate next time

# ? Jun 9, 2015 20:18

EmmyOk: Aug 11, 2013

pksage posted:

I've seen this parallel brought up before this page, but most people only have two hands, so losing a specific one is, unsurprisingly, a 50/50 chance. And it probably skews heavily toward your dominant hand across all the various ways to lose an extremity, like accidents or aetheric bone surgery. Could just be a coincidence.

Yeah that had crossed my mind but that probability assumes it had to be a hand. Why not be any other body part? Granted a hand is the easiest for Annie to accidentally see.

# ? Jun 9, 2015 22:32

Mazerunner: Apr 22, 2010; Good Hunter, what... what is this post?

EmmyOk posted:

Yeah that had crossed my mind but that probability assumes it had to be a hand. Why not be any other body part? Granted a hand is the easiest for Annie to accidentally see.

Because we use hands to touch stuff and put them in poo poo. Feet are the other big one but it implies a very different cause of injury than hand/arm.

# ? Jun 9, 2015 23:04

Ezelek: Apr 30, 2006; I raised you, and loved you, I've given you weapons, taught you techniques, endowed you with knowledge. There's nothing more for me to give you. All that's left for you to take is my life.

The Red Queen posted:

What if Anthony just came back to ask Jones to marry him

How can someone marry themselves???

# ? Jun 9, 2015 23:38

maswastaken: Nov 12, 2011

How can someone even less outwardly emotional than Jones be the person to ask? And why does it still result in Annie having a better parent than the one she's got?

# ? Jun 9, 2015 23:55

Nuns with Guns: Jul 23, 2010; It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

Itzena posted:

This is after the waltz scene in the flooded rose garden, right?

well yes, that's absolutely mandatory

# ? Jun 10, 2015 02:01

Roland Jones: Aug 18, 2011; by Nyc_Tattoo

The Red Queen posted:

What if Anthony just came back to ask Jones to marry him

He wasn't satisfied taking Eglamore's first girlfriend. Now he's come for the second.

# ? Jun 10, 2015 02:50

SHISHKABOB: Nov 30, 2012; Fun Shoe

Fister Roboto posted:

I think Kat would be better off not being friends with someone who has flagrantly abused her trust, yes.

# ? Jun 10, 2015 06:28

Fecha: Nov 4, 2006; Did I... did I miss anything important?

Thank god! I have been waiting for months for someone to ask that question.

# ? Jun 10, 2015 08:01

Arthur Crackpot: Sep 4, 2011; Proceed in a str8 line shaped like a perpetually shifting torus knot until you feel a sense of despair transcending all mortal comprehension, then hang a right at the next octopus, she'll be in the first room on the left

And Donald cuts the bullshit like a freshly-honed scalpel.

# ? Jun 10, 2015 08:04

Tollymain: Jul 9, 2010; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

all i have to say is yesssssssssss

# ? Jun 10, 2015 08:07

BravestOfTheLamps: Oct 12, 2012; by FactsAreUseless; Lipstick Apathy

BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Dec 1, 2016

# ? Jun 10, 2015 08:08

Captain Oblivious: Oct 12, 2007; I'm not like other posters

I love you Donald.

# ? Jun 10, 2015 08:09

MikeJF: Dec 20, 2003

Donny! He says what we're all thinking!

# ? Jun 10, 2015 08:12

Rei_: May 16, 2004; The difference between confinement and rest is a shift in perspective

Hey, Donnie.

Over here.

*finger guns*

Yer alright

# ? Jun 10, 2015 08:13

Roger Explosion: Jan 26, 2006; THAT'S SPECTACULAR.

Don gets better every single time he's on panel.

# ? Jun 10, 2015 08:46

Wittgen: Oct 13, 2012; We have decided to decline your offer of a butt kicking.

I love Kat's angry face.

Mostly, though, I'm just struck by Anthony's amazing design. He looks like he came from an entirely different comic. It's not just his face scars. Even his knuckles seem overly detailed and gnarly. He's an outsider to the tenth degree.

# ? Jun 10, 2015 09:03