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Well that explains everything
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May 24, 2021 09:01
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Rand Brittain posted:Local blogger squeaks in with a contrary opinion just before Siddell can confirm or deny with a new page. From the Twitter thread that they mentioned: https://twitter.com/OrnithologyGam1/status/1395746200511516673 oooof
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May 24, 2021 09:16
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You know, I don’t think the other shoe is gonna drop
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May 24, 2021 09:31
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Blasmeister posted:You know, I don’t think the other shoe is gonna drop Chapter still isn't over though, so there's still something else to say. Although it could just be Annie going indoors, saying "Dad, I'm home", and he's all "get the gently caress out of my sight", laugh track, fade to credits
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May 24, 2021 09:56
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Tenebrais posted:Chapter still isn't over though, so there's still something else to say. I am aware of your current spatial position.
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May 24, 2021 10:11
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a character in the comic: it sure is weird that all of these people are so preoccupied with their dislike for this dude that they completely write off all of the other odd and dangerous stuff in Antimony's life readers: but her MAKEUP though! like I think the intent here is to show that both the characters and the readers are very against tony and his whatsits and that's fine but they also seem largely incapable of - in the context of the story! - delineating what they would prefer to happen instead and I know there's been a lot of posts about "they should get therapy" - I feel like one should measure how often the reality is that therapy is expensive and unavailable for people, and then replace our own contemporary capitalist horseshit with amoral secret science entity and/or manipulative magical creatures and forces Bleck fucked around with this message at 10:26 on May 24, 2021 |
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May 24, 2021 10:23
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Tenebrais posted:Chapter still isn't over though, so there's still something else to say.
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May 24, 2021 10:24
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Clearly the solution is for Tony to be drunk whenever he's with his daughter, he's clearly more capable of being emotional while drinking with Donald.
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May 24, 2021 10:29
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Bleck posted:a character in the comic: it sure is weird that all of these people are so preoccupied with their dislike for this dude that they completely write off all of the other odd and dangerous stuff in Antimony's life I don't know I feel this dosen't hit, it's precisely because characters seem to at least attempt to grasp with the fundamental supernatural threats that makes this frustrating. If the narrative was just about supernatural situations at wierd british boarding school, that's fine you don't need to necessarily question why the gang of kid's mom's and dad's aren't doing more (or it's handwaved). However when you show characters to be competent and attempting to do their best, then introduce something like this their inactions is palpable.
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May 24, 2021 10:30
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If the next chapter begins with Jones saying "Antimony is not well," it'll all be worth it.
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May 24, 2021 13:18
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Dienes posted:If the next chapter begins with Jones saying "Antimony is not well," it'll all be worth it. Lmao. Whether this ends with Annie going up to her room and showing legitimate sadness, or goes inside and has an awkward interaction and is ok with it, or whatever, I really don't think we needed to devote so many pages to "actually, Annie really is xyz about this". Someone in that twitter thread said this felt like a recap episode, and I have to agree. I feel like a lot of this has already been said in the comic and in better ways. The only new thing is Annie not burying her feelings and finally accepting her dad sucks? It feels like this long-standing arc of Annie and her dad has been tied up with the blandest bow possible. I know I'm retreading what has already been said here, but *shrugs*. A Sometimes Food posted:Chapter Two here and it's the first time I've really doubted it. I can't exactly remember when I started reading, but it's been at least ten years. And same.
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May 24, 2021 13:43
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Dienes posted:If the next chapter begins with Jones saying "Antimony is not well," it'll all be worth it. "Initiate Omega Protocol!"
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May 24, 2021 14:11
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catapede posted:It feels like this long-standing arc of Annie and her dad has been tied up with the blandest bow possible.
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May 24, 2021 14:21
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Pachylad posted:From the Twitter thread that they mentioned: Good news for that guy, therapy works. https://mobile.twitter.com/LorienInksong/status/1396080819806949376 This is where I'm at. I feel gross and disappointed that yet another thing I thought was creative, complex, and full of intriguing contradictions was actually just British.
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May 24, 2021 14:31
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I uh.. don't think that's what gaslighting is.
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May 24, 2021 15:21
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Yeah iunno, it's a huge stretch to jump from 'Tom may have some iffy ideas about how to deal with toxic parental relationships' to 'Tom is gaslighting me by having his main character (who is not necessarily always the voice of reason, let alone 'authorial mouthpiece'!) spout out these thoughts about latching on to your abusive parents'.
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May 24, 2021 15:30
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https://twitter.com/cornhime/status/1396791566279315460 A good thread by Never Satisfied author on how, for quite some time now, the comic has been constructing the positions of the cast, and specifically the members of the cast who do and do not have credibility, to legitimize Tony as well as Annie's response here. poo poo sucks. Pachylad posted:Yeah iunno, it's a huge stretch to jump from 'Tom may have some iffy ideas about how to deal with toxic parental relationships' to 'Tom is gaslighting me by having his main character (who is not necessarily always the voice of reason, let alone 'authorial mouthpiece'!) spout out these thoughts about latching on to your abusive parents'. This is not just about what Annie says. It's about how Jones, and even the text below the comic, are framing this issue. The point of Jones as a character is she is the neutral, impartial observer. She is legitimizing Annie here, and so is the author text.
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May 24, 2021 15:30
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:I uh.. don't think that's what gaslighting is. this is gaslighting
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May 24, 2021 15:37
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Strep Vote posted:yet another thing I thought was creative, complex, and full of intriguing contradictions was actually just British. This kinda sorta explains my feelings toward Gaiman's work, so thanks for that!
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May 24, 2021 15:39
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:I uh.. don't think that's what gaslighting is. I've been suspicious of the comics motives re tony for a while, and frankly I think Tom wants us to reach the same conclusion Annie did which is presumably the conclusion the author reached in his relationship with his father. Unfortunately, no one likes that literal children get parentified and no one thinks that's the best way to resolve a fictional relationship, except I guess the author, who I fear is explicitly telling us to drop it and it's FINE, he has his reasons... Captain Oblivious posted:https://twitter.com/cornhime/status/1396791566279315460 I swear, I think we're supposed to think Annie is exaggerating her trauma and Kat is the objective one. I hated that Kat emotionally betrayed Annie and I don't think it's been addressed. Their beautiful friendship was the heart of this story. https://mobile.twitter.com/Bigg_AASB/status/1396789975379701763 This weird donkey skin dynamic is so loving creepy and never explored. Strep Vote fucked around with this message at 15:59 on May 24, 2021 |
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May 24, 2021 15:50
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i would say that people are jumping to conclusions except that the comic's been massaging the audience's expectations of tony for years now. this poo poo's run out of mulligans! eventually you have to be judged for the story you are apparently trying to tell and not the one your readers hope you're going to tell later
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May 24, 2021 16:11
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next scene Headmaster: "Did you tell Antimony we are using a computer chip to put her father's mind in a cage" Jones: "No"
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May 24, 2021 16:19
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While we're scraping Twitter, Magnolia Porter Siddell is weighing in too: https://twitter.com/MagnoliaPearl/status/1396841417918619650 https://twitter.com/MagnoliaPearl/status/1396843412750487558 She is probably the only person with access to Tom's actual intentions with the storyline so I'm inclined to believe her when she says this isn't what the story is trying to say.
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May 24, 2021 16:23
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I don't care how this gets resolved so long as it gets resolved soon and we don't have to have Tony Time in the comic for a good long while.
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May 24, 2021 16:24
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every fictional teenager must make clean, sound, and rational decisions regarding lovely parents they can't help but love in every comic where they are the perspective character, even where the only available therapist is the universe's pet rock, or it's gaslighting me, personally
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May 24, 2021 16:25
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Tenebrais posted:While we're scraping Twitter, Magnolia Porter Siddell is weighing in too: You know what is really frustrating? Reading a story for 16 years and still not be sure what the author is getting at. One might think there was something wrong with the way it's written! As an aside the tic toc reveal and wrap up was done with so little fanfare I forgot about it until I read this thread arguing about time travel and was like, "oh yeah, kat broke time but so far it is irrelevant to the plot as a whole" so there's that.
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May 24, 2021 16:31
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I didn't really judge this storyline about what it says about the artist, because too many webcomic discussion threads do that poo poo and it sucks. i just judge this storyline for following up an inexplicable magical deus ex machina return to the status quo, with a completely random tangent about a character whose dimensionality has already been fully explored. And we already knew how Annie feels. It'd be like if a tv show killed off a main character right at the end of an episode, and then the very next episode was a hot springs episode. It's just deeply unsatisfying. But that doesn't change that Gunnerkrigg to this point has been a good comic, and Tom has been a good artist and writer. But as with any ongoing work, I can be unhappy with the current direction. Which I am, right now.
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May 24, 2021 16:35
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i also don't really care about whether or not this is all connected to siddell's personal issues, but that vacant stare annie gave directly to the audience while saying "I DON'T CARE IF YOU HATE MY DAD" did come across as a skosh confrontational
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May 24, 2021 16:37
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Whenever Tony isn't on screen, the other characters should be asking "Where's Anthony?".
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May 24, 2021 16:40
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The thing about this storyline is I think I tried to have sympathy for it for longer than a lot of people I knew did, because I had a similar life arc of having a difficult relationship with a parent that improved as we aged, and it was clear from pretty early on that Tom was deriving from something personal when writing it. Where it's fallen apart for me is that it feels like no moment of improvement in Annie and Tony's relationship has felt earned or justified, and certain other plot points (ie. Tony opening up to other people before her, including her best friend) have made that lack of earned improvement even more glaring. One big moment that would have been important to see- Court Annie putting her foot down and continuing to wear her makeup- was completely offscreen, and Tony bonding with Forest Annie never felt like real improvement when he was still neglecting Court Annie. This story would have maybe worked if we saw Tony making strong purposeful effort to improve things with Annie, but we've never seen that on page really, so it's just made everything else about him feel a little incoherent. And, yes, this chapter offers a reason for Tony not pursuing those improvements, but without getting too ~personal~, both myself and my parent have somewhat similar emotional issues to Tony, and that didn't stop my parent from making effort to improve. I guess I am one of the people for whom it feels like the mind cage stuff doesn't make much of a difference. The way I would put it is, I can definitely believe these readings aren't what Tom intended, considering the seemingly personal aspect of it all. But that doesn't mean it isn't leaving behind some distressing interpretations and making things unpleasant to read for people. Every single person I know who has dropped Gunnerkrigg has dropped it because of Tony. We can argue over the Tony situation all we want, but I don't think we can deny it makes a lot of people uncomfortable, a sizable enough number that it has to count for something. More than any of that, though- and maybe this sounds dismissive but whatever- this is just getting boring! It really does feel like a recap. The mind cage metaphor makes things more explicit, sure, but it was still something that was pretty obvious to any regular reader already. I don't...get the point of this chapter, especially after it seemingly dropped the big ending of last chapter so quickly. We'll see how it ends, but it'll have to surprise me to make it feel worthwhile.
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May 24, 2021 17:00
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I always thought that the thread projected a little bit too much on the comic in the last few years but holy smokes some of those tweets. I am glad a thread on a dead gay comedy forum continues to provide the highest quality level of discussion about a comic. I think you are all cool and good no matter your thoughts on Anthony.
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May 24, 2021 17:00
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How much of all this could have been avoided if the audience had actually gotten to see the Tony that was so charming he flipped Kat’s opinion and left now-fused Annie with fond memories to look back on? Every on-screen moment we have ranges from neutral to outright horrific at worse, which makes it all ring hollow because characters saying “no sometimes he’s cool” doesn’t actually work to counterbalance the only way the audience has actually experienced him as a parent and person in the narrative, and what the text is showing rather than telling. Arguments that the narrative is tied to Annie’s perspective so we should only meet him as he is to her now fall apart when a significant portion of this emotional resolution comes from Also Annie who experienced that different Tony, with the comic now hinging a major resolution on that experience… that we as audience completely skipped. Eta: to clarify, there were tiny bits of nicer Tony with Forest Annie, but there was not actual, significant emotional story beats with them bonding significantly - what we got was “ok he’s neglecting one and treating the other like not his kid but a pal” which… yeah. I never thought I’d argue for a Tony chapter but if the options here were “we see Tony and Annies struggling and succeeding to mend their relationship with heartfelt moments while no plot progresses” or “literally a month of monologuing about the topic instead of showing it” I would pick the former. coolusername fucked around with this message at 17:24 on May 24, 2021 |
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May 24, 2021 17:12
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Tom mentions in the retrospectives that chapter 51 was intended to make readers really hate Tony it succeeded a sight too well, the hatedom far outstayed its intended welcome, and now it's a narrative problem
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May 24, 2021 17:16
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coolusername posted:How much of all this could have been avoided if the audience had actually gotten to see the Tony that was so charming he flipped Kat’s opinion and left now-fused Annie with fond memories to look back on? We did, there was a whole chapter about Tony and Surma getting together to show his general charisma one-to-one.
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May 24, 2021 17:19
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Bleck posted:a character in the comic: it sure is weird that all of these people are so preoccupied with their dislike for this dude that they completely write off all of the other odd and dangerous stuff in Antimony's life Isn't the disregard with which all of the adults (except Eglamore) treat the various supernatural threats the children face, and their near total lack of meaningful support, a recurring criticism and frustration point? Traditionally, every protaganist in the comic has been exceptionally passive except Annie and Kat, and that has been balanced out by Annie and Kat being, if not active, at least fairly reactive. Essentially, it was a story about the kids, so the deflection that the adults acting like that might be a problem in terms of their being poo poo, but it was also necessary and crucial as a central element to the magical boarding school genre. The main motivating actors have traditionally been the antagonists - the robots, coyote, ysengrin, except all those figures are now non-entities as well and Loup is also weirdly passive, adopting a sit back and wait approach that really doesn't seem to fit his impulsive characterization. And of course we had the major inciting antagonist, Tony, who has basically done absolutely nothing for chapters and chapters despite the story continuing to be about him! Now it feels like Annie and Kat have now been solidly pushed into a passive role of "learn to accept things as they are" while neatly tying up loose ends with little fanfare in ways that aren't even the results of the main characters actions and it is quickly draining any kind of momentum out of the comic. Both Kat and Annie had their major conflicts from the last several chapters resolved by an outside party stepping in and doing vague and mysterious magic to it that isn't even entirely of their own volition! (Zimmy's stuff is sort of a side effect of her being around, the Norn's seem to be doing what they do specifically because it's what they end up doing) We used to have long term things like that regularly - the Ghost of the Annan Waters was a major high point for this, but we also had Kat's work with the robots and the stuff that fell out of that, we had their relationship-esque arcs where they engaged in self-motivated actions as well. God, how much better would these Tony-focused chapters have to be if either Tony or Annie were actually trying to accomplish something instead of milling about and trying to excuse and/or justify their pre-existing feelings. Like at this point, even the best possible outcome, some twist that throws this all in a new light and recontextualizes things in hindsight, these will still have been boring and meandering. Tenebrais posted:We did, there was a whole chapter about Tony and Surma getting together to show his general charisma one-to-one. Yeah but she didn't have any good reason to explicitly hate him in advance, it could have been interesting to see him actually getting on Kat's good side. It could also have been bad, depending on the execution. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 17:22 on May 24, 2021 |
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May 24, 2021 17:20
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I'm still putting it all on black that something is very wrong here. life_source posted:I always thought that the thread projected a little bit too much on the comic in the last few years but holy smokes some of those tweets. Twitter is a hellsite and should never be used for anything other than mild amusement at the unbidden id of the internet.
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May 24, 2021 17:20
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ronya posted:Tom mentions in the retrospectives that chapter 51 was intended to make readers really hate Tony It's less that it worked too well than that he did nothing interesting or satisfying with it. There were points where it looked like it could go in an interesting direction (his confession to Don about what he did to try to contact Surma and how it hurt Annie, the weirdness of how he's able to interact normally with one version of Annie but not another), but what we ended up with is this intensely tedious chapter.
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May 24, 2021 17:22
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https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1887 Historical question, what is going on in the fire panel here? It honestly kinda looks like he's the one lighting it on fire, since he's got some coming from his other hand!
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May 24, 2021 17:27
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Tenebrais posted:While we're scraping Twitter, Magnolia Porter Siddell is weighing in too: Intentions don’t super matter is the issue here. Your audience does not really have any obligation to ignore the horrible messages you appear to be determined to send now because maybe you’ll walk it back later.
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May 24, 2021 17:27
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Tenebrais posted:We did, there was a whole chapter about Tony and Surma getting together to show his general charisma one-to-one. “charisma” this was the worst chapter that had appeared in the comic up to that point and, in retrospect, a portent of things to come narrative and cast alike mooning over a tapioca doe-eyed introvert
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May 24, 2021 17:30
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