|
to be slightly meta: we are in chapter three of volume 8 which is just about the middle of the book, so it's going to go somewhere I still don't think "reader catharsis by slowly punching Tony in the face whilst Eglamore explodes in happiness" was ever in the cards however. This was always in the YA fantasy adventure genre, not the misery lit genre; Annie's mentor figures range from demigods who have served time for murking people to mack on her mum to demigods to demigods who have actively tried to murk her multiple times and counting; none of this has ever been emotionally very healthy; but Bad Dads are a common human-relatable experience for the reader but Skewered By An Ancient Wood-God is not). Really I would rate the odds of restoring the Two Annies higher at this point
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 17:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 19:09 |
|
|
Tenebrais posted:We did, there was a whole chapter about Tony and Surma getting together to show his general charisma one-to-one. I don’t think that counts for what I mean here, but it’s late so I’m not conveying it well - there’s a difference between a flashback to a past with a love interest, and on-screen interactions with the protagonists of the comic, who have a completely different type of relationship and also are carrying significant baggage. It’s like.. when a movie does the flashback to the villain’s troubled past, and that one time he pet a dog and how he used to be good to shoehorn in emotional depth, but for the last 90 minutes all he’s been doing with the characters we’ve been sharing a viewpoint with is punching them in the face so the pathos doesn’t land at all. Like I edited in, I never thought I’d argue for a Tony chapter but if the options here were “we see Tony and the Annies struggling and succeeding or failing 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.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 17:37
|
|
|
Have either Annie or Tony actually intentional done anything to try to improve the situation between the two of them? The only attempt I recall being made on either side was Annie splitting herself off from her fire spirit half and that feels like years of days ago.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 17:55
|
|
|
Part of it is that the comic has been loving boring for.... years, now.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 17:55
|
|
|
Flavahbeast posted:next scene Honestly given everything in Ysengrin's presentation and Coyote's hand in it I wouldn't be surprised if Tony is the court's mirror version
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 18:01
|
|
|
I was writing a sort of rambling rant about this chapter but I think instead I'll just keep it simple  These two comics are 9 years apart. You can have Annie's relationship with her dad be a major part of the plot that consumes a ton of screentime, or you can have Annie's relationship with her dad be a largely static part of the setting, but you can't do both! Like, the chapter where Donny and Tony shared a drink and talked while Annie listened in was 5 years ago, and nothing about him has changed in that time. Which would be fine, if Annie's angsty dad with social anxiety was a background detail to the exciting magic adventures, but not if you're having entire chapters dedicated to hamfisted monologues about it while the magic adventures get resolved off screen and nobody in the cast cares.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 18:03
|
|
|
i've come to the conclusion that annie's reaction is supposed to feel creepy and unsettling, and within the next few pages we'll have the internal meltdown shown to us. there is no possible way that this is an actual plot beat we're supposed to believe in any way.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 18:08
|
|
|
I, too, am at the bargaining phase.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 18:12
|
|
|
GunnerJ posted:I, too, am at the bargaining phase. 
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 18:14
|
|
|
Splicer posted:It's either a bow or a slow fuse and I'm really hoping it's a fuse Niavmai posted:i've come to the conclusion that annie's reaction is supposed to feel creepy and unsettling, and within the next few pages we'll have the internal meltdown shown to us. there is no possible way that this is an actual plot beat we're supposed to believe in any way. I am hoping there's more, and haven't totally bought into this being it. It has still been feeling a bit creepy. GunnerJ posted:I, too, am at the bargaining phase. But yeah, I worry this is me as well haha.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 18:17
|
|
|
Niavmai posted:i've come to the conclusion that annie's reaction is supposed to feel creepy and unsettling, and within the next few pages we'll have the internal meltdown shown to us. there is no possible way that this is an actual plot beat we're supposed to believe in any way. I honestly don't know if it matters at this point. Annie forces herself to believe how much she loves for, cares for, understands and needs her father while she secretly is having a conflicted mental breakdown... we've already had that story! We've had that story but told in a far better more convincing way! It's well-trod ground at this point. No, the only twist that might work here is that we zoom in to see that Forest/Court Annie hybrid persona is in control and operating maliciously, and has court and forest Annie's still separate but trapped in their own mind cages, or some other out-of-left-field craziness that makes things interesting again, no matter how dumb it might be from a logical perspective. Any normal way out of this is just gonna feel both boring and weak, I feel like. Edit: Except that plot was basically done with the spiders already too. Goddamnit, I can't actually think of ANY good way for this to go! GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 18:19 on May 24, 2021 |
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 18:17
|
|
|
there HAS to be some kind of payoff for the middle left panel here. actually impossible for it to not be a thing.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 18:26
|
|
|
Niavmai posted:there HAS to be some kind of payoff for the middle left panel here. actually impossible for it to not be a thing. This has been my hope from the point when I read that, yeah. The most recent pages with Annie have just been such a tonal shift that it's a bit harder to hold onto now.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 18:29
|
|
|
Oxxidation posted: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 This is very apt for how I've been feeling for a while. I tend to give writers a lot of leeway on building to something, which has come back to bite me in the rear end a few times, but it's getting to the point where I don't think the payoff can justify the wait. Tenebrais posted:
Nah gently caress that poo poo. Aside from the obvious fact that the author's intent doesn't matter, my issue isn't and hasn't been that Tom is secretly trying to gaslight the audience or whatever, it's that this is badly written. I doubted Tom's story is supposed to come across as endorsing weird abusive parenting (apparently correctly), so he's failing at bringing across the message he wants to, bad writing. My big issue with last chapter wasn't the fusion Tuvixing a character or what it represented for Annie's psyche or anything, it was that in a comic book, a visual medium, it boiled down to one character sitting in a black void explaining someone's motivation to another character in text boxes, bad writing. I like weird trippy visuals as much as the next guy, but the art should serve the story, not just be an ancillary add on. In a chapter with two Annie's being fused the biggest reaction I saw to the last page was the "Did Jet just... Die?" all over again. I don't care at this stage because I don't really trust this will have a good payoff rather than just a brief wet fart of a "conclusion" that'll probably just happen to the characters instead of because of the characters. Captain Oblivious posted: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. Jones's presence as the authorial voice of "rightness" has (subjectively) backfired on Tom before. I remember in the chapter where Smitty is named the court's Medium Jones being steadfast against the court's choice because she thinks Annie is better really came across as some "Everyone who is a Good Guy must like /support the hero" which he'd avoided elsewhere. I mean it makes sense that Annie would have no loyalty to the court as they're kind of portrayed as 100% cartoonish bad guys, to the point that to Annie a capricious psychopathic deity and a big murderous violent rear end in a top hat are a better choice of friends. To the point where any of the good guys working for the court becomes kind of suspect.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 18:30
|
|
|
Goons: what... no  ? but good. healthy... people codependent. must
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 18:34
|
|
|
other, dumber goons: all relationships can be saved.  abuse should be ignored. you can just forgive anything!
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 18:36
|
|
|
Niavmai posted:other, dumber goons: all relationships can be saved. sounds like you should
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 18:41
|
|
|
in terms of people interpreting it the way they are, having strong visual presentation behind annie can create the impression that her viewpoint is endorsed. that radial set of images behind tony on page 2466 would basically be a montage in a TV show. and in a tv show, if you had a character state her viewpoint significantly and then had a supplemental montage backing it up set to, like, an accoustic cover of a 1980s song, you would come to the conclusion that the show is endorsing that viewpoint a better approach if the viewer was not meant to agree with annie would be to keep the composition/framing cold and distant, like we are still observing from Jones' perspective. but it has felt mostly steered by Annie since 2466. so i think that leads people into assuming this is a mouthpiece moment regardless of whether it actually is e: part of this may be because of the strong visual language that gets used in educational material and Youtube video essays to supplement talking points, and people are subconsciously used to that. if in a fiction, someone were to explain sci-fi/technobabble using visual cutaways and charts, you'd probably be more likely to assume that this was a factual rule of the in-fiction universe and not just some nonsense, than if it was just spoken from a waist up shot the whole time. to put it another way, when Coyote speaks in visual metaphors in that abstract style, even if it seems random and illogical, you generally accept what he's telling you even if it doesn't hold up to the boundaries of our reality. but if he was just sitting on a couch next to Tim Buckley and a watermelon talking about his exploits, you'd say "uhh what? ..ookaaay surrre..." without confrontation of Annie's viewpoint, with mostly supplemental visual storytelling that favors Annie (including the panel where it looks like she is looking directly at the reader), and Jones barely even being present in the panels, all of these things converge into "the comic is telling us that this is correct and right", regardless of creator intent. The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 18:58 on May 24, 2021 |
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 18:47
|
|
|
Hodgepodge posted:Goons: what... no Niavmai posted:other, dumber goons: all relationships can be saved. The duality of goon
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 19:03
|
|
|
cut to: TONY before the ELDERS OF THE COURT TONY: She is ready. Initiate instrumentality.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 19:09
|
|
|
As a parent I just hate to see this literal child essentially resign herself to a one sided relationship with the one person who should be showing that sort of devotion to her. This is not a repaired relationship and while I hope there's a SIKE!! in the works, I am not feeling good about it.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 19:24
|
|
|
GlyphGryph posted:https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1887 Those are the same visuals as Annie using the blinker stone to create fire, the hand with the smaller fire is likely holding a blinker stone or similar device while it appears that Tony is the one creating the fire, we haven't seen him have any sort of aetheric shaping abilities, so it is probably Surma showing him how her abilities work and him being fascinated by it.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 19:37
|
|
|
Snake Maze posted:I was writing a sort of rambling rant about this chapter but I think instead I'll just keep it simple The difference between the two seems to be in the first Annie is making excuses for her father, while in the second, she is admitting that this is part of him. The locus of control is different, and she's inching closer to acknowledging his faults, even if she doesn't show the emotional reaction to them that the thread wants. She's moving away from idolization and closer to just loving him as a person.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 20:00
|
|
|
she needs to open up to him about how much it hurts that he's only made one attempt to kill her. ysengrin is at what, three? and the first required time travel to fix. unacceptable from a father figure to this medium 
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 20:14
|
|
|
Annie feeling this way about Tony is a believable step in her growth as a character. I personally don't read it as an attempt to lend authorial justification to parental relationships of this kind. But I have decided that I don't like this chapter, and the reason why is because we're 30 pages of decompressed recap into this chapter and I still have no idea how the epiphany this soliloquy is describing follows from the last thing that happened to her.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 21:30
|
|
|
We could have just had this chapter entirely be about Paz continuing to degenerate into Diego 2.0 jealous madness, and not only would it have made just as much sense coming off the previous chapter, it would also have been much more narratively interesting in that characters would have been developed in the process.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 21:47
|
|
|
Gravitas Shortfall posted:I uh.. don't think that's what gaslighting is. milquetoast liberals have transformed the word 'gaslighting' into meaning "did something I didn't like" edit: GlyphGryph posted: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? I mean it's probably been expressed but I personally have never witnessed anybody saying that the comic's depiction of it is tantamount to expressing an intent towards legitimizing the abuse they have personally faced in real life Bleck fucked around with this message at 22:04 on May 24, 2021 |
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 22:00
|
|
|
Bleck posted:milquetoast liberals have transformed the word 'gaslighting' into meaning "
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 22:04
|
|
|
Gaslight is a synonym for “lie” now
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 22:36
|
|
|
Bleck posted:milquetoast liberals have transformed the word 'gaslighting' into meaning "did something I didn't like" Hey now, conservatives did it too. The internet has a thing for taking a word with a very specific meaning for a very specific kind of thing and then running it into the ground via misuse. See also: Safe Space, Triggered, Fake News, and Cuckold.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 22:44
|
|
|
Space Cadet Omoly posted:Hey now, conservatives did it too. The internet has a thing for taking a word with a very specific meaning for a very specific kind of thing and then running it into the ground via misuse. I agree, and yet I still couldn't help being like  about cuck. If they're a cuck... then you're playing right into their perceived fetish...
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 23:11
|
|
|
To get embarrassingly personal for a second, I have been in a similar situation to Annie. I have a father who is emotionally absent - and at times capital a Abusive - in my life. It has been a lifelong struggle to accept that no matter what I say or do, he'll never change or be the person I needed him to be due to his own issues he is either unable or unwilling to treat. I had to accept that if I wanted a relationship with him I had to accept these things are part of him and try to find meaning in our interactions regardless. I made that decision for my benefit, not his, and it's not always been an easy one. It's also not the kind of decision you make once, but an ongoing process of "what am I willing to put up with in my day to day life". It's something you reconsider when that person hurts you again. It's an ongoing choice that requires pain, reflection, and acceptance of pain. Like, that is a process I went through, so I can see what the writer is attempting to say here. But it still just doesn't feel fulfilling or ring true in any sense for me. It still feels like, on some level, it is excusing his actions, because Annie sounds... proud and defiant, and that isn't really the kind of emotions that come along with that revelation, in my experience. More like resignation and mourning, especially when you're a teenager. You're mourning the kind of relationship you could've, should've had, and accepting that this is the best you'll get. It's deeply wounding. It's not peaceful. I don't feel like I've seen that from her. It's more like "Everyone says my dad is hosed up. Well gently caress em!!! I love my dad anyway even if he's a hosed up little man who hurt me so deeply I spiritually dissociated for a while! I'm proud of that! And you can take that to the BANK, Jones!". This internal struggle has not been telegraphed in a way that it feels earned, despite her being the protagonist, the character we're most privy to the internal conflicts of. It feels like she went from anger to denial to acceptance, missing quite a few steps inbetween. And the responsibility she seems to take on of "he's so lonely and hosed up, I'll be standing there beside him even if no one else is!" isn't particularly healthy or normal. Narratively, all of this has been framed as a Good Thing. The long monologue with her staring directly at the viewer - which has been interpreted by many, whether they love or hate Tony, to be directly speaking to the audience, if you've been keeping up with the comments section at all. there's a lot of "lol annie speaking directly to the comments section here! you tell em, Tom!!!" - and the framing device of "everyone gives their opinion, then the protagonist steps in at the end with the Right Opinion that we are supposed to take as the final word", co-signed by the comic's most impartial observer character. I would love so badly to be wrong. I would love to have this end with Jones saying "Antimony is clearly on the brink of losing her mind" to some unseen third party, or a peek into the ether where Annies are kept in literal mind cages or whatever. But so far, it's just been leaning more and more in that direction. I also agree strongly with one of the linked Twitter threads that Kat suddenly being friends with Tony felt completely unearned and at odds with the rest of the comic after she hated him for so long, and is deeply baffling to me still. Irukandji Syndrome fucked around with this message at 23:27 on May 24, 2021 |
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 23:24
|
|
|
catapede posted:I agree, and yet I still couldn't help being like Yeah, I'm still not sure how "Cuck" worked its way into mainstream language. I'm interested to see if any other sexual fetishes start popping up in casual conversation as words people use to refer to non-sexual things (My money is on "Cock and Ball Torture").
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 23:25
|
|
|
Irukandji Syndrome posted:I also agree strongly with one of the linked Twitter threads that Kat suddenly being friends with Tony felt completely unearned and at odds with the rest of the comic after she hated him for so long, and is deeply baffling to me still. Yeah in hindsight this felt like it was leading up to Tony's neuroses being "I feel pressured into stoic silence when there is more than one person around me", something extremely normal and pretty much just realistic as his true ailment we've since heard about extensively... but it ended up being so incredibly specific to Annie instead that chapters like this one have resulted. Almost feels a bit like the scope of Tony's illness changed narratively and so too did the way characters talk and act about it. CJacobs fucked around with this message at 23:54 on May 24, 2021 |
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 23:51
|
|
|
Space Cadet Omoly posted:Yeah, I'm still not sure how "Cuck" worked its way into mainstream language. I'm interested to see if any other sexual fetishes start popping up in casual conversation as words people use to refer to non-sexual things (My money is on "Cock and Ball Torture"). It sounds like you're all a bit confused on the etymology/useage of the word. Cuck is used as a toxic masculinity thing. All sex is power politics to the common user of the term, so a cuck is someone who isn't powerful enough to ensure their woman doesn't cheat. It's not being used in a fetish context, it's being used as an insult and a way to affirm their own masculinity by proxy.
|
|
#
?
May 24, 2021 23:57
|
|
|
Captain Oblivious posted:It sounds like you're all a bit confused on the etymology/useage of the word. Cuck is used as a toxic masculinity thing. All sex is power politics to the common user of the term, so a cuck is someone who isn't powerful enough to ensure their woman doesn't cheat. It's not being used in a fetish context, it's being used as an insult and a way to affirm their own masculinity by proxy. No I get that, it's just weird that they're using the word "cuck" for that. The word "wimp" and "wussy" already existed, and if they needed the word to have another layer of lewd sexism then there was already "bitch" and "pussy". I guess what I'm trying to say is if I had to guess which word was going to become the new bitch I wouldn't have guessed it was going to be cuck.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2021 00:05
|
|
|
Alright Carlin this thread's about gunnerkrigg court not losers online edit: Not that I disagree with your conclusion though
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2021 00:08
|
|
|
CJacobs posted:Alright Carlin this thread's about gunnerkrigg court not losers online Fair enough, I'll stop now.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2021 00:32
|
|
|
Imagine if Tony had the mind cage talk with Forest Annie instead of Jones
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2021 01:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 19:09 |
|
|
Tony could win a lot of points right now by ending this chapter with a heroic display of willpower resulting in... telling a joke to Annie.
|
|
#
?
May 25, 2021 01:58
|
|