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Rand Brittain posted:In fairness the Court appears to be ludicrously incompetent and may not even exist. i consider this more of a failing of tom's storytelling than an intentional piece of messaging, not that i think you're taking away the latter like i understand not wanting to write about things you're not interested in, but you shouldn't make things you're not interested in incredibly important to your story having a coherent narrative in that case
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Dec 27, 2021 02:57
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As a story told from the POV of teenagers, I'm not surprised that they/we don't know anything about the heads of the court. Like, I barely knew who our principal was, much less the superintendent and board, and they weren't part of a shadow organization.
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Dec 27, 2021 03:35
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I'm fairly sure at this point that it's very intentional that the Court isn't shown to have any real leadership. We've seen quite a lot of Court employees now, from Aata to Paz, and all of them are just trying to fit in with some vague system greater than them. Every person we've seen that appears to be part of the high authorities later turned out to be hiding poo poo from the Court in some way. I don't think there is a higher authority. And there never was. Both in a real-time sense (way back in book one, the person representing the Court side when Coyote came to visit was the school headteacher) and in the in-story sense (when you look at the scenes around the plot to soul-trap Jeanne, none of the people present seem to have anyone ranking above or below them). The recent focus on Aata and Shell was probably intended to cast a light on that, although Tom has clearly struggled to convey what is meant to be going on thematically/emotionally since the pandemic started.
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Dec 27, 2021 03:45
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yeah actually they will posted:you a fan? Gunnerkrigg fanart is surprisingly rare.
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Dec 27, 2021 06:01
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I feel like the closest comparison to make here for me is -- god help us all -- homestuck, when it really fell apart over "The core cast reaches a huge climatic moment -- ok but the narrative focus is now switching for a whole new cast's worth of teenage romantic bullshit rehashing." I miss the core cast of characters I cared about. I don't want to revisit the 'dealing with romantic crushes' arc because we've already done that like three times with actual core cast members. Also yeah how old is Shell because so far she's been acting more flustered and emotional than the actual 16 year olds which is a weird choice.
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Dec 27, 2021 07:11
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not everything needs to be in medias res, dude there are limits
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Dec 27, 2021 19:02
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this comic is falling apart
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Dec 27, 2021 19:03
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Are we reaching the endgame?
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Dec 27, 2021 19:45
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coolusername posted:I feel like the closest comparison to make here for me is -- god help us all -- homestuck, when it really fell apart over "The core cast reaches a huge climatic moment -- ok but the narrative focus is now switching for a whole new cast's worth of teenage romantic bullshit rehashing." I miss the core cast of characters I cared about. I don't want to revisit the 'dealing with romantic crushes' arc because we've already done that like three times with actual core cast members. Also yeah how old is Shell because so far she's been acting more flustered and emotional than the actual 16 year olds which is a weird choice. Agree with this (except Homestuck cuz I never read it lol). I'm just baffled with this choice of tonal shift and plot. Also, I always thought Shell was a student. If she's not, then wow lol. Have we had any indication of her age n the comic? Edit: yeah looking at early appearances, it seems she's an adult. In her first appearance, I thought she was a junior or senior-level (or the UK equivalent actually lol) student. Legit thought she was a student in large part because of her personality lol. catapede fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Dec 27, 2021 |
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Dec 27, 2021 20:02
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What the heck is formspring?
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Dec 27, 2021 20:08
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oh my god the shadow men actually don't know anything about this all 
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Dec 27, 2021 20:18
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more like shitow men
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Dec 27, 2021 20:23
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so she's been working to hide them from the shadow men but then she popped up cutely in front of shell with her robusband and THEN she learned that shell was no longer with the shadow men (though the whole reason aata distanced himself from her at the end was explicitly so she could stay with the shadow men and possibly be an inside source) what was her plan if shell was in fact still a member of the illuminati? also, lots of people just kind of casually leaving the illuminati alive
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Dec 27, 2021 20:47
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Did she only just now learn that Shell left? Annie and the viewer only just now got confirmation, but Juliette didn't seem super surprised by it.
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Dec 27, 2021 20:51
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I think if i were to pinpoint a moment where I felt the comic went awry, it’s back when she repeated the year. Because that’s when Annie really got plot isolated from Kat and the other students of her age group and maturity level, or a little above and below, dealing with the mysteries and having adventures. Ever since then, a lot of it’s been her bouncing around with an adult cast. And the problem there is once it’s a bunch of adults as sidekicks/accomplices, either the adults are sensible mature people, in which case everything in the story becomes “the teenager should just sit down and do her homework” as they handle things, or the adults need to be immature people acting at the level of Annie or beneath her so she retains protagonist status to sort things out, at which point you get weirdness like Shell who originally seemed like an adult now coming off as a younger teen than Annie with a crush on a middle aged man, and the great overarching semi-threats like the Shadowmen suddenly reduced to ‘dumb boss easily tricked by one woman’ officework tier. There’s a reason most magical school narratives don’t suddenly toss the teen protagonist into the teacher’s lounge.
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Dec 27, 2021 20:53
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Niavmai posted:oh my god the shadow men actually don't know anything about this all "actually nobody knows anything meaningful about the plot" is such a great subversion of this genre, it can completely stall the story!
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Dec 27, 2021 20:57
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Niavmai posted:oh my god the shadow men actually don't know anything about this all If only any of them had gotten a haircut recently
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Dec 27, 2021 20:57
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What the gently caress is that pose Juliette is doing in the bottom left "Nyeh! I'll rebel against the adults too! Nyeh!"
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Dec 27, 2021 20:59
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tom can write exactly one adult woman and that's kat's mom i guess, one of a handful of characters i still think are okay
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Dec 27, 2021 21:37
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Niavmai posted:oh my god the shadow men actually don't know anything about this all
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Dec 27, 2021 21:43
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The Shadow Men aren't that large an organization, so it doesn't seem terribly surprising that the robots only fell under one person's job description and that when she flipped on them, she was able to cover the whole thing up. Especially since all they're actually doing in public is, like, normal human stuff.
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Dec 27, 2021 21:49
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CodfishCartographer posted:Did she only just now learn that Shell left? Annie and the viewer only just now got confirmation, but Juliette didn't seem super surprised by it. No one part of an organization called Shadow Men would be wearing that cute dress.
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Dec 27, 2021 23:05
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maswastaken posted:Meaning Juliette's actually competent at coverups. i just can't suspend my disbelief this far. they're just less and less scary and more incompetent. every adult is either literally magically compentent, and therefore completely absent, or less competent than the children in the story. Niavmai fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Dec 28, 2021 |
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Dec 28, 2021 00:20
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Niavmai posted:i just can't suspend my disbelief this far. I've got some bad news about how almost all institutions are in real life
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Dec 28, 2021 01:05
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A big issue I feel, for me, is that no one is actually a part of any of these organizations. We only meet the subversive elements. It makes it hard to believe the organizations actually exist and it's odd that we're _told_ the Court is doing this or that and using that as an explanation why the people we do see are doing certain things, but it's nonsense because there's no substance or sense of the conflicts.
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Dec 28, 2021 01:15
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I agree with the criticisms here (including the Homestuck comparison, which is especially apt if you think about how the villain who had been built up to as an all-powerful god capable of warping time and space itself was abruptly supplanted by a childish facsimile of himself that is very annoying and difficult to take seriously) but also I'm a bit confused about the comic itself. Why does she say Aata wouldn't want to see the robots and he shouldn't know about it, if he was also kicked out of the Shadow Men? Is he a robot racist?coolusername posted:I think if i were to pinpoint a moment where I felt the comic went awry, it’s back when she repeated the year. Because that’s when Annie really got plot isolated from Kat and the other students of her age group and maturity level, or a little above and below, dealing with the mysteries and having adventures. Ever since then, a lot of it’s been her bouncing around with an adult cast. I don't want to be too harsh, but it does kind of feel like the comic is just... going in a weird direction. It still feels hilarious that we just completely slammed the brakes on the tension of Loup going insane and attacking because "well he can't be detected so it's probably fine, anyway now Annie's helping a robot get a haircut isn't that nice  "It's not that I don't like interpersonal stuff or that I don't want to see where the robot stuff goes, but it just feels... inappropriate after what we just went through. The Homestuck comparison really works for how often it just builds to something then breaks the tension, breaks the tension, breaks the tension, and nothing gets done, like a bizarre comic edging.
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Dec 28, 2021 01:36
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nothing says 'competent at coverups' like introducing someone you still think is with the shadow men to your robot husband and then being ready to quit the shadow men in a fit of childlike pique tom has had a lot of opportunities to establish literally anything about the court's leadership and has refrained from doing so. the thing about the story being from the POV of teenagers i think falls apart when the teenagers are commiserating with gods and inventing new forms of life, not to mention that the camera *has* moved off of them from time to time. it is absolutely ballistic to me that the Court has been portrayed as being so big and controlling and commanding so many resources, has this secret society cabal that operates it, but also you can just QUIT said secret society with no threat to your life there are no stakes. there are somehow no stakes at all in a conflict between a double wolf god that can create literal tidal waves of the earth itself and an illuminati with magitek and secret sciences out the rear end. neither antagonist seems to actually be capable of anything meaningful. even the plan of 'create another Court' falls flat because what does that even mean? how bad is that? how will this damage the world at large? what is even the state of the world at large? is there even any reason to interfere? if there's no reason to interfere, what are we even doing here? what is the story of Gunnerkrigg Court such that it continues to be written after the biggest actual conflict that meant anything (the relationship between Annie and Anthony) has been completely resolved?
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Dec 28, 2021 01:38
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Patware posted:if there's no reason to interfere, what are we even doing here? what is the story of Gunnerkrigg Court such that it continues to be written after the biggest actual conflict that meant anything (the relationship between Annie and Anthony) has been completely resolved? Like, all of those are on the table (probably, kinda seems like investigating the court's mysteries has been tabled), but I don't feel like the story is moving towards any of them with particular urgency.
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Dec 28, 2021 02:14
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Thinking about the previous arc where Jeanne was the primary story conflict, they also took plenty of breaks in between thinking about Jeanne to do whatever, but the difference was that Jeanne didn't really do anything as an active antagonist, she just kinda sat there and busted up anybody who got too close to the Annan waters. Loup on the other hand is presented as a clear and present danger to the court, but the story is being paced the same as Jeanne, which is where the dissonance comes from.
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Dec 28, 2021 04:46
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The current goals are: -Wait and see what Loup is doing, then probably stop him, somehow. -Wait and see what's going on with the robot people. -What's the omega thing? That's it, I think? There's no real reason for the gang to want to stop the court from moving, I guess unless Annie wants to stay near the forest. We'll obviously need to deal with Loup at some point, but there's no clear way to do that so we're kinda just waffling around waiting. E: Jeanne really was the perfect kind of goal for this sort of story. There wasn't any urgency to it beyond just the gang wanting to help someone in need. This gave plenty of room for side stories to flesh out the world and characters, or just to have some fun. Having an active threat like Loup doesn't really work for the kind of meandering story Tom seems to enjoy telling, so instead we wind up with weird situations like Loup sending people on a jrpg item hunt and then just vanishing for seemingly no reason CodfishCartographer fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Dec 28, 2021 |
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Dec 28, 2021 04:54
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coolusername posted:I think if i were to pinpoint a moment where I felt the comic went awry, it’s back when she repeated the year. Because that’s when Annie really got plot isolated from Kat and the other students of her age group and maturity level, or a little above and below, dealing with the mysteries and having adventures. Ever since then, a lot of it’s been her bouncing around with an adult cast. for me it would be where kat suddenly became bff's with tony after one loving afternoon with him, completely offscreen. like the girl had such a grudge against the guy that the manifestation of her subconsciousness would scream about how much she hated him whenever he was mentioned, and this was disarmed in a matter of hours??
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Dec 28, 2021 07:04
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A big flaming stink posted:for me it would be where kat suddenly became bff's with tony after one loving afternoon with him, completely offscreen. I think the only way it could happen was off-screen because I can't imagine how that would work if we actually got to see it. But yeah I concur, that was also a huge swerve into "Uh, what?!" and a peeling away of Annie's peer group as she lost her greatest supporter, because you can't have the best friend defending her consistently while simultaneously trying to downplay everything he did and back that awful dad truck up. Actually like, did everyone on Annie's side against Tony just get bussed or have a sudden off-screen change of heart if they couldn't be removed from the narrative? Is that actually what happened to the entire class?
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Dec 28, 2021 08:31
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dragon enthusiast posted:Thinking about the previous arc where Jeanne was the primary story conflict, they also took plenty of breaks in between thinking about Jeanne to do whatever, but the difference was that Jeanne didn't really do anything as an active antagonist, she just kinda sat there and busted up anybody who got too close to the Annan waters. Loup on the other hand is presented as a clear and present danger to the court, but the story is being paced the same as Jeanne, which is where the dissonance comes from. I think it's this I don't really think these story beats are necessarily problematic - but the execution doesn't satisfactorily weave the subplots together, and pacing it separately deflates the tension from each subplot before introducing the next one. There's no particular reason Annie has to obtain closure to her Two Annies problem before Project Omega finally gets explained to the reader; ordering it this way has changed nothing about the outcome
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Dec 28, 2021 17:00
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it feels like tom just sorta forgets that characters exist if they aren't actively doing something in his mind. like, where are kat's parents in all of this? her mom has a magical computer that can defy physics, but she's not connected to the robots at all, has no idea this is happening? no one at all has noticed the new people, who are clearly not really hiding their existence? i feel like he's leaning very heavily on characters being hypercompetent - like what'sherface apparently single handedly hiding all of this from the shadowmen - but she's been presented to us as a middle management type, are we supposed to just assume that everyone above her is less competent? it detracts from the story so much when things don't line up like this. the shadow men are both skilled enough to try to steal the power of god, but too dumb to have like... a single spy drone? one single human spy that's capable of checking enough of the court to see something like mass unauthorized gatherings and excavations? my suspension of disbelief is just gone. i fear that topics like "becoming god" are out of tom's reach, if he just wants to tell a cutesy slice of life thing like this.
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Dec 28, 2021 19:01
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If you watch his comic retrospectives on youtube, it very quickly becomes clear that everything in this comic is derived from Tom's childhood and Tom's own relationship with his father. My read is that the main story of the comic is supposed to be Annie's relationship with her awful dad, and everything before the Tony-comes-back arc was really good by accident.
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Dec 28, 2021 19:22
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Verus posted:If you watch his comic retrospectives on youtube, it very quickly becomes clear that everything in this comic is derived from Tom's childhood and Tom's own relationship with his father. My read is that the main story of the comic is supposed to be Annie's relationship with her awful dad, and everything before the Tony-comes-back arc was really good by accident. That sure must be confusing to Tom to see readers completely tear apart what he might have intended to be the meat of the comic.
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Dec 28, 2021 19:44
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there are some loving buckwild takes going on and I suggest taking a break from the comic rather than turning this into yet another dire Mock Thread
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Dec 29, 2021 03:46
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do you have any counterpoints
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Dec 29, 2021 03:57
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Even the comments to the comic's latest pages (normally the most cheerleady, many of whom loved Annie's Tony monologue) are going ??? about the latest Shadowmen swerves and the lack of Loup resolution.
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Dec 29, 2021 04:03
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gunnerkrigg court is a comic where nothing ever happens
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Dec 29, 2021 04:16
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