Tiny Myers posted:

Young, capricious lordling who is far less intimidating than the more powerful antagonist he is derived from, who was foreshadowed to be the real threat for most of the comic

Having to sit through multiple slogs of him painfully interacting with several women in a way that reveals his lack of experience with social interaction, immaturity, and contempt for humanity

He has some weird antiquated misogyny going on

Violent as a solution to all of his problems

Comic started to get a lot more agonizing to read and dubiously characterized around the part where he came in

An interesting alternate universe version of a character was abruptly dumpstered from the comic for what felt like no reason

Comic's writing may have been derailed by the writer paying too much attention to the fanbase

Various things that were foreshadowed in the past as important either never come up or are resolved in an unsatisfyingly tidy fashion

Irritating pacing where it seems like something is finally going to happen and then everything grinds to a halt, as if to purposely frustrate the reader

Random exhausting conversations that are just paragraphs of characters talking over each other while we're begging for something to happen

Tiny Myers posted:

Young, capricious lordling who is far less intimidating than the more powerful antagonist he is derived from, who was foreshadowed to be the real threat for most of the comic

Having to sit through multiple slogs of him painfully interacting with several women in a way that reveals his lack of experience with social interaction, immaturity, and contempt for humanity

He has some weird antiquated misogyny going on

Violent as a solution to all of his problems

Comic started to get a lot more agonizing to read and dubiously characterized around the part where he came in

An interesting alternate universe version of a character was abruptly dumpstered from the comic for what felt like no reason

Comic's writing may have been derailed by the writer paying too much attention to the fanbase

Various things that were foreshadowed in the past as important either never come up or are resolved in an unsatisfyingly tidy fashion

Irritating pacing where it seems like something is finally going to happen and then everything grinds to a halt, as if to purposely frustrate the reader

Random exhausting conversations that are just paragraphs of characters talking over each other while we're begging for something to happen

dromal phrenia posted:

Man if Loup is jealous of Renard and Annie now, imagine how jealous he'll be when Renard gets a sexy new body from Kat

Would humanized Renard still be Annie's familiar? Kinda has some weird connotations.

Potsticker posted:

Zimmy (Zimmy)

quote:

This. This I think... I'm not sure where I saw it, but I recall at some point hearing or reading something about you saying that when you were creating Antimony Carver, that it was the red hair that hooked you. Like, as in once you understood what it said about her character, you knew you had a good one to work with. And when I think about like. What came to my mind when I heard that you had said that. It was this scene. I just didn't know it.

quote:

She's a child with Super-powers but still a child. She's got to stop thinking she's the only one that can do anything. This is what caused the former Forrest Faire kids to want to no longer have anything to do with her. So wrapped up in wanting to get something done that she does use others as game pieces. First against beings that know the rules of the game better than she did, and now against a being that doesn't care about the rules.

quote:

I wish Annie could better see how she just is not to blame for everything she tries to make things better... things that are generally screwed up because of OTHERS' mistakes in the first place.

quote:

Ah, there's her anger. I think the sequence in this and the last page is one of my favorites in the comic so far

quote:

Again, the female idiot doesn’t own up. She’s got to blame another and be pissed. ????

quote:

Meanwhile Parley turns into an electrical socket.

Tiny Myers posted:

She's a child with Super-powers but still a child. She's got to stop thinking she's the only one that can do anything. This is what caused the former Forrest Faire kids to want to no longer have anything to do with her. So wrapped up in wanting to get something done that she does use others as game pieces. First against beings that know the rules of the game better than she did, and now against a being that doesn't care about the rules.

Tiny Myers posted:

Like I thought Eglamore and Parley were pretty clearly on Annie's side as far as "the court sucks and we need to catch Loup"? Have we seen anything to indicate they're not?

Potsticker posted:

Zimmy (Zimmy)

Riot Bus posted:

As much as we all may hate it the truer adaptation of this is "Tony (Tony)" given how Vriska was famed for inspiring pages and pages of furious discourse over whether or not she was the worst. Zimmy is basically just uncontroversially popular and has never actually done anything evil to argue about.

Potsticker posted:

I don't remember any character looking at the camera and saying that Vriska doing hosed up poo poo was actually okay.


tbf I never did finish Homestuck so maybe that did happen.

Riot Bus posted:

It did actually happen, yes. The entire narrative actually rewrote itself to justify her behavior.

Potsticker posted:

Riot Bus posted:

It did actually happen, yes. The entire narrative actually rewrote itself to justify her behavior.

Also YMMV over whether Vriska was ever likeable. Many would disagree. Including me. I do actually find Tony more likeable than her.

isasphere posted:

Vriska also drove a teenager girl (who was in some way emotionally dependent on her for her own self-image (for convoluted multi-timeline reasons (the girl was also Vriska))) to tears after humiliating her and demolishing her psychologically, and then the girl's best friend ditched her for Vriska... hold on a second this is no longer funny

Tiny Myers posted:

Not just best friend, girlfriend. They kissed.

Yes I will never stop being angry about how (Vriska) was actually a cool and good version of Vriska and it sucked that upon achieving literally any self-reflection and peace from her traumas Hussie went "wait this makes the character boring better have her rip herself a new one"

Not as angry as I am about the insane fiasco of him (cw: weird sex bullshit from Homestuck's epilogue) turning Jane into a literal fascist who has weird sex with Gamzee in the epilogue, and then going into weird detail about Jade's dog genitalia, but, you know

isasphere posted:

I had forgotten that they were girlfriends, right!

As for the spoilered bits... I didn't know those things had happened but I'm also not surprised after reading that weird document that went on about the troll empress's life on Earth in uncomfortable detail.

You know what, at least Gunnerkrigg for all its awkward parts never outright crosses the line over to depravity. Like, I don't trust Tom's judgement anymore on many things, as an author, but I still see parts of the story I fell in love with in the first place, and they remain, at least from outward appearances, sincere attempts at telling a story for the sake of the story, not at playing weird gotcha games with the reader over and over.

isasphere posted:

I had forgotten that they were girlfriends, right!

As for the spoilered bits... I didn't know those things had happened but I'm also not surprised after reading that weird document that went on about the troll empress's life on Earth in uncomfortable detail.

You know what, at least Gunnerkrigg for all its awkward parts never outright crosses the line over to depravity. Like, I don't trust Tom's judgement anymore on many things, as an author, but I still see parts of the story I fell in love with in the first place, and they remain, at least from outward appearances, sincere attempts at telling a story for the sake of the story, not at playing weird gotcha games with the reader over and over.

Niavmai posted:

"at least he's not ruining the story on purpose"

Splicer posted:

The difference is that Tony's actions were terrible, but not unforgiveable. The problem is he has at no point taken any actions that would cause the readers to want to forgive him. He's not irredeemable but the story has at no point featured him trying to redeem himself.

Dogwood Fleet posted:

Even if we saw him with a copy of "How to Talk to Your Teenage Daughter" and then miserably fail at interacting with her would go a long way. He doesn't have to do a good job, I just want to see him try.

Splicer posted:

The difference is that Tony's actions were terrible, but not unforgiveable. The problem is he has at no point taken any actions that would cause the readers to want to forgive him. He's not irredeemable but the story has at no point featured him trying to redeem himself.

Tiny Myers posted:

Yeah. Like I get it, he can't talk to Annie, but literally just have a scene of him saying to Jones or Donny or anyone else, "I wish I could apologize to her for everything I've done, I wish she could know how sorry I am." Instead it's all just like... "how could I do that to my own daughter, I'm a terrible father", which - maybe if you've never been in the situation yourself, you wouldn't understand the distinction, but it's a far cry from actually wanting to apologize and take responsibility. Not saying Tom hasn't, as people have pointed out he's apparently said it's based on his relationship with his own father, I just mean if anyone is reading my post like "wtf, that seems specific".

Like, go back and read The Mind Cage or Annie And The Fire. Not a single word about wanting to apologize to her. The closest thing to acknowledging her feelings is "How could she live with the man who killed her mother?", which still ignores, you know, the profound emotional trauma of growing up without a father especially after losing your mom, and completely robs her of agency in the matter - it's not as if he ever asked his young and traumatized daughter if she'd prefer not to lose her father too, after all. He just decided that on his own, and I'm sure not wanting to be around the little girl who looks like his dead wife had nothing to do with it.

It all comes back to his own feelings. We have no textual indication he would actually apologize, only "well I would want to if I was in that situation" (e.g. common sense).

You see, the difficult thing for a lot of people to accept or understand - and I've gone through therapy about this, and dealt with it extensively - is that self-loathing and guilt can actually be easy by comparison because they center your own feelings. They place you in control, in a way. Nobody else is punishing you because you get to punish yourself. There's a kind of safety in it, despite how bad it feels.

A true apology means acknowledging the OTHER person's feelings and how your actions hurt them, and taking responsibility to improve, and also accepting the risk that they may say things that are hurtful to you (and likely justified), reveal some additional hurt you've caused, and/or choose not to forgive you. Feeling bad does not necessarily mean the person would apologize, or do so in a way that centers the person receiving the apology! People can feel guilty and also be selfish, even if they don't realize it!

It means not saying "I'm the worst and I deserve to die". It means saying "I did a really bad thing, and I'm capable of not being the worst, but I have to actively try. Failing to try would make me ACTUALLY the worst. And now I have to actually live with the consequences of my actions." And the latter is a lot more painful and difficult than the former, because it means you have to admit what you've done and risk failing to improve.

Literally just have a single line of him saying "I wish I could apologize" and that's IT. That's all it would loving take for me to believe he's genuinely repentant and it's just his magic anxiety getting in the way.

Dogwood Fleet posted:

Even if we saw him with a copy of "How to Talk to Your Teenage Daughter" and then miserably fail at interacting with her would go a long way. He doesn't have to do a good job, I just want to see him try.

Splicer posted:

Write her a note! Or show him struggling to write her a note! Replace the entire "no my father is good actually " chapter with a single page of Annie finding dozens of balled up papers all reading "Annie I *frustrated scrawl*"

e: "Hey Jones tell Annie she's a good daughter and I miss when I could talk to at least one of her"

Splicer posted:

I just reread his part of the mind cage and it's even more me me me than I remembered.

Potsticker posted:

This and basically everything Tiny Meyes posted is why I have disliked that and everything to do with how Tony has been treated in the comic after a certain point. He (Tony) has a very selfish outlook on things because he thinks about himself primarily and almost exclusively. His wife and his daughter don't seem like people to him, even, except for how they relate to him. And pairing Tony thinking about Tony (and now Loup thinking about Loup) along with the comic moving away from showing Annie's thought processes and motivations and point of view makes it feel like the comic itself is no longer about Annie's story, it's not about Annie doing things or experiencing things.

GunnerJ posted:

Tony (Toni)

GunnerJ posted:

Tony (Tony)

Tiny Myers posted:

I think Gunnerkrigg Court is an allegory for the American political system.

Annie (Democrats) is sucking up to a party she will never get the approval of but inexplicably still craves, thinking "this time will be different", while ignoring those directly in front of her stepping up to fill the role like Renard (blue-collar workers) or Eglamore (socialists). She actually briefly achieves some success with this when she splits into two with Forest-Annie (Centrism) who is different enough to be seen as separate, but when they merge together and return to her old self (the Democrats, but with the Overton window moved) he goes back to ignoring her.

Her similarly-minded but technically more progressive friend, Kat (Liberalism), in a relationship with Paz (the LGBT community), starts out initially hating Tony (Tony) but gradually grows to do the same bullshit, and isn't so different from Annie after all despite their perceived differences in worldview.

Meanwhile, Coyote (American conservatism) is a threat that Annie has long ignored or treated as quaint, and Ysengrin (Fascism) is a figure that Annie fights with but often outright embraces despite the dangers and his strong hatred of one race, and despite being beholden to her supposed allegiances with the Court (the increasingly dispossessed and disillusioned middle class) due to her elected position, who understandably fear Ysengrin and see him as dangerous.

She is confused and unsure how to handle their resulting fusion, Loup (the modern alt-right), and continues to appeal to his common decency in the hopes that some of his components still exist, not realizing that he is now chaotic, unpredictable, and misogynist. He unrepentantly masks himself as a friendly face (Twitter users). He has simultaneous protectiveness and distaste for Lana (Elon Musk), who flirts with Loup and desperately wants his attention despite not fully understanding him, and has been sometimes surrounded by unsavory types (Bitcoiners).

Secret because I don't want to imply that Tom Siddell wants American voters to forsake all political parties and move across the sea to create a socialist paradise.

Tiny Myers posted:

I think Gunnerkrigg Court is an allegory for the American political system.

Annie (Democrats) is sucking up to a party she will never get the approval of but inexplicably still craves, thinking "this time will be different", while ignoring those directly in front of her stepping up to fill the role like Renard (blue-collar workers) or Eglamore (socialists). She actually briefly achieves some success with this when she splits into two with Forest-Annie (Centrism) who is different enough to be seen as separate, but when they merge together and return to her old self (the Democrats, but with the Overton window moved) he goes back to ignoring her.

Her similarly-minded but technically more progressive friend, Kat (Liberalism), in a relationship with Paz (the LGBT community), starts out initially hating Tony (Tony) but gradually grows to do the same bullshit, and isn't so different from Annie after all despite their perceived differences in worldview.

Meanwhile, Coyote (American conservatism) is a threat that Annie has long ignored or treated as quaint, and Ysengrin (Fascism) is a figure that Annie fights with but often outright embraces despite the dangers and his strong hatred of one race, and despite being beholden to her supposed allegiances with the Court (the increasingly dispossessed and disillusioned middle class) due to her elected position, who understandably fear Ysengrin and see him as dangerous.

She is confused and unsure how to handle their resulting fusion, Loup (the modern alt-right), and continues to appeal to his common decency in the hopes that some of his components still exist, not realizing that he is now chaotic, unpredictable, and misogynist. He unrepentantly masks himself as a friendly face (Twitter users). He has simultaneous protectiveness and distaste for Lana (Elon Musk), who flirts with Loup and desperately wants his attention despite not fully understanding him, and has been sometimes surrounded by unsavory types (Bitcoiners).

Secret because I don't want to imply that Tom Siddell wants American voters to forsake all political parties and move across the sea to create a socialist paradise.

Tiny Myers posted:

Tony (Toni) (Toné)

Tiny Myers posted:

I think Gunnerkrigg Court is an allegory for the American political system.

Annie (Democrats) is sucking up to a party she will never get the approval of but inexplicably still craves, thinking "this time will be different", while ignoring those directly in front of her stepping up to fill the role like Renard (blue-collar workers) or Eglamore (socialists). She actually briefly achieves some success with this when she splits into two with Forest-Annie (Centrism) who is different enough to be seen as separate, but when they merge together and return to her old self (the Democrats, but with the Overton window moved) he goes back to ignoring her.

Her similarly-minded but technically more progressive friend, Kat (Liberalism), in a relationship with Paz (the LGBT community), starts out initially hating Tony (Tony) but gradually grows to do the same bullshit, and isn't so different from Annie after all despite their perceived differences in worldview.

Meanwhile, Coyote (American conservatism) is a threat that Annie has long ignored or treated as quaint, and Ysengrin (Fascism) is a figure that Annie fights with but often outright embraces despite the dangers and his strong hatred of one race, and despite being beholden to her supposed allegiances with the Court (the increasingly dispossessed and disillusioned middle class) due to her elected position, who understandably fear Ysengrin and see him as dangerous.

She is confused and unsure how to handle their resulting fusion, Loup (the modern alt-right), and continues to appeal to his common decency in the hopes that some of his components still exist, not realizing that he is now chaotic, unpredictable, and misogynist. He unrepentantly masks himself as a friendly face (Twitter users). He has simultaneous protectiveness and distaste for Lana (Elon Musk), who flirts with Loup and desperately wants his attention despite not fully understanding him, and has been sometimes surrounded by unsavory types (Bitcoiners).

Secret because I don't want to imply that Tom Siddell wants American voters to forsake all political parties and move across the sea to create a socialist paradise.