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When you put it like that, the fact that Annie is single and has no clear love interest is really strange. (We know she's had a crush on someone though so it's not some kind of ace representation.) Like all these characters around her are paired off, but the fact that she's not isn't even a plot point or relevant to her character development or motives at all. Is that weird? Not even saying it's bad, just kinda conspicuous.
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Dec 26, 2022 19:29
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| # ? May 24, 2024 01:45 |
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GunnerJ posted:When you put it like that, the fact that Annie is single and has no clear love interest is really strange. (We know she's had a crush on someone though so it's not some kind of ace representation.) Like all these characters around her are paired off, but the fact that she's not isn't even a plot point or relevant to her character development or motives at all. Is that weird? Not even saying it's bad, just kinda conspicuous. I wouldn't say that's weird. She's not even an adult yet. It's extremely possible to make it through highschool without ever having any romantic interests. It's also possible to delude yourself into thinking you have a romantic crush just because you really like or respect someone. Also the comic has put a spotlight on how Annie is single while everyone else is hooking up before. You don't need it to be a plot point or character motive to justify a teenager not hooking up. I always just saw it as her being a little off beat socially, just like she's always been. She clearly has a bit of baggage when it comes to romance. EDIT: Thinking on it, Annie has been shown to have a weird relationship with romance several times now. She flipped out at Mort when she found out that blinker stones were traditionally a romantic gift. She tried to seduce Jack just so she could blow him off as a confused kind of revenge, and then afterwards decided she wanted to kiss him for real and then was rejected. That, and the very idea of her settling down with someone and having kids is innately tied to her premature death. I really don't think her being single right now is strange narratively. Riot Bus fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Dec 26, 2022 |
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Dec 26, 2022 22:39
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It's less that it's weird that she's not dating anyone as a fact about her within the setting, it's weird that in a sea of characters who are all in relationships and with their relationships being something prominent about how they are portrayed, her being an exception to that doesn't seem too significant in the narrative. There are plenty of reasons why she might be single, but when the story is placing increasing emphasis on characters in relationships with the way scenes are framed or with how much screen time relationship stuff gets, the supposed main character being single starts to feel like a glaring exception, something that deserves a bit of examination. Like, it's not actually weird or bad, it's fine in and of itself if she's single, but the more scenes go by where some couple is the focus point, the more an important character not being in a relationship starts to seem like something that deserves dwelling on. (To be clear, I don't want or need that, I think it's interesting for a main character to have no love interest.)
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Dec 26, 2022 22:55
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My guess is she's being used as a vehicle by which the reader can experience these relationships from the outside. As if she's there to react and ask questions that a reader might ask, or to be part of a joke that Tom wants to tell. If the comic was about Annie's romantic relationship with someone that could easily take up the whole comic, but as an outside observer she can be around and react to a whole bunch of relationships. That alone isn't necessarily a bad or a good thing, having your viewpoint character be as an audience stand in is not uncommon and can be used in interesting ways. Especially if the character's personality affects what they are seeing and twists it one way or the other. Tom has used Annie like that in the past, especially in the early days of the comic and I thought it did work then. And as mentioned Annie has very good and relevant reasons for having a weird relationship with uh.. relationships as a general thing. Though I only wish more of her personality was exerting itself during any of these recent exchanges instead of her just mildly reacting to things then nothing ever coming of it afterwards. It all just feels like such low stakes small talk and there's nothing in these exchanges seems important outside of rehashing information we already have. She's just kinda there for all of this and it doesn't feel important that she's there.
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Dec 26, 2022 23:55
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Yeah, honestly, all my problems with the comic right now come from how low-stakes everything feels. The only thing explicitly bad that is happening right now is that the Court might try to hurt Zimmy to accomplish its schemes. Even Loup isn't really doing anything bad right now and hasn't been for a while. It feels like the plot has been indefinitely postponed while people nebulously search for things (like looking for Zimmy or Loup looking for Omega.) It does seem like the narrative is trying to draw a line here, saying that Annie is important because Loup is specifically her business. But now that Lana arguably has way more influence over him and Loup isn't as interested in doing whatever thing he's actually here for... goodness. I just wish there was some kind of threat that was actually specific and looming as opposed to a bunch of vague hypotheticals.
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Dec 27, 2022 07:11
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It wouldn't be hard to make it out like what the Court is doing is hosed up and needs to be stopped, either. Like, it's literally been said that anyone who goes there will permanently disappear from the memories of those who knew them as if they'd never existed, which is an extremely hosed up thing with big ethical implications. All the stuff about ether being a key part of reality, too. Or the eugenics undertones of looking at anyone with a bit of magic background and saying "no entry into our perfect society for you". Let alone their history of crimes and taking advantage of the labor of manipulated forest peoples (who don't get a summer vacation, and are/were used as a distributed supercomputer). Or abruptly leaving anyone who doesn't want to (or cannot) go to the moon without lodging or arrangements for their education/careers, in the middle of a refugee crisis, with the spectre of a murderous forest god looming. Also, when people are brought into the ether after they die, what exactly does it mean to die in a place with no ether? Tiny Myers fucked around with this message at 07:34 on Dec 27, 2022 |
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Dec 27, 2022 07:29
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Yeah, there are definitely options. There are a lot of things about the Court's plans that are hosed up in a more subtle way, but since none of the character's are talking about them, it's hard to know why they care. All Annie could come up with was "what if the faeries want to come" when they clearly wouldn't want to. The question of "what will happen to all of the Court's wards when the leadership fucks off?" hasn't been pointed out or answered. Ultimately, it's an issue that none of the characters we care about are going. We don't have any characters who are going who can express reasons for going that are sympathetic or interesting. It's just referenced that some people are going, but those people are largely irrelevant.
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Dec 27, 2022 08:39
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Riot Bus posted:Yeah, there are definitely options. There are a lot of things about the Court's plans that are hosed up in a more subtle way, but since none of the character's are talking about them, it's hard to know why they care. All Annie could come up with was "what if the faeries want to come" when they clearly wouldn't want to. The question of "what will happen to all of the Court's wards when the leadership fucks off?" hasn't been pointed out or answered. I guess that's the heart of it. Anyone we really care about hasn't been really affected by the big catastrophic plot events. Loup attacks and part of the Court collapses, but we don't see if anyone died or if anyone is missing (other than the robots, who are being slowly rescued). Everyone we see treats this event more as an inconvenience. Loup ejected the forest inhabitants, but we don't see how they are suffering from missing their home and being forced to adapt to human culture, other than That One Problematic Scene and joke scenes. Loup destroys Renard's body, but, he already had sorta given up on returning to his original body anyway to stay with Annie? We only get like 2 pages of Annie and Renard looking shocked and sad and that's it. The Court tries to tempt Kat to go to their weird zero-ether place, but it would have been out of character for her to accept at this stage of her character development, so it was already sort of a forgone conclusion that it wouldn't happen. The headmaster looked distraught when his daughter wasn't there at the ocean place meeting, but we haven't seen her or what she thinks about this. We haven't seen what Annie's former classmates think about any of this, and she doesn't seem to have bonded to her current classmates that much either? Do we even know their names? What do Jack and Jenny think about all the recent events? How did they affect them? Jenny was learning to be a witch, where are the other witches? Who are they? How did they deal with the influx of forest inhabitants? What do they think about Loup? Things happen and nominally affect the world but the characters don't seem to care beyond going through the necessary motions to sort of advance the plot at a snail's pace. edit: and that was off the top of my head. What about the psychopomps and the I-forget-their-department-name the guys that looked over Mort when he was a ghost?? What about Jones? What about the minotaur? Where are all the schoolteachers? What are they doing right now? The rest of the students and the ex-fairies and ex-forest people who are now human? How are they adapting? Like said above, has anyone just straight up abandoned the Court since it looks like they'll be out of a job soon? So many angles to show that things are affecting people and none of them taken. isasphere fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Dec 27, 2022 |
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Dec 27, 2022 08:57
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I think Tom moved across the ocean into the general vicinity of populated northeastern America near Jeph Jacques and caught Questionable Content syndrome. In no particular order or accuracy, just funny... These two people, well, they are a couple, so, moving on... Okay this one side character guy? Let me introduce a new forgettable character from the forest, and now they are a couple. Kinda bored with this, so, here's some brand new characters, and well, they are a couple now. Main characters are sidelined, we'll touch on them and maybe get back to them in a year or more, because check out this romance! Let's pull this couple out from deep in the archives because ideas are running thin, so give them a brand-new look. (QC-101) It's funny to me because that formula has been what Questionable Content has been riding on forever. However, the current QC story arc is about some main characters going on an adventure and exploring a mysterious technologically advanced city while Gunnerkrigg Court has mostly been about couples hanging out at cafes and similar places and chatting lately, a long QC staple. If this is a long con where Jeph and Tom switched writing duties for each other's comics a while back, I would be legit impressed. Obviously this is meant to be a joke type post, but, lol.
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Dec 27, 2022 15:35
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Guestionable Content
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Dec 27, 2022 17:11
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YaketySass posted:Guestionable Content lol
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Dec 27, 2022 17:20
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Tom: I'm thinking of making the robots kiss Jeff busting through the wall like a horrifying kool aid man/kramer hybrid: LET ME SHOW YOU MY NOTES
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Dec 27, 2022 17:25
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Imagine if Kat had no choice about going with the court. "oh yeah, well we've set up the machine so that will automatically transport everyone from the court that doesn't have an etheric connection." suddenly tension and a sense of urgency - if we don't solve this problem, Kat will be gone forever. Idk if it'll tie into wherever the story is meant to go, but hey at least it'd be more immediately engaging.
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Dec 27, 2022 18:08
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CodfishCartographer posted:Imagine if Kat had no choice about going with the court. "oh yeah, well we've set up the machine so that will automatically transport everyone from the court that doesn't have an etheric connection." suddenly tension and a sense of urgency - if we don't solve this problem, Kat will be gone forever. Idk if it'll tie into wherever the story is meant to go, but hey at least it'd be more immediately engaging. The funny thing is I suspect that's a planned plot point (not the human-grabbing machine specifically, but somecourt leadership telling someone we care about "you're coming with us, this is not a choice"). But Tom will wait to introduce the audience to this tension until the last minute, meaning it'll be set up only for a protagonist to shoot it down immediately. Like, within three pages down to less than a page. I'd bet money.
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Dec 27, 2022 18:16
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Twenty Four posted:the current QC story arc is about some main characters going on an adventure and exploring a mysterious technologically advanced city lmao what? it's been years since I read QC. it almost sounds like it's gotten good.
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Dec 27, 2022 21:36
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DontMockMySmock posted:lmao what? it's been years since I read QC. it almost sounds like it's gotten good. It's weird. It's still a comic about a bunch of hosed up twentysomethings figuring out their lives but that includes steps into, for example, breaking up an underground robot fighting ring and the survivors from that join the cast of characters as it goes back to more mundane stories.
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Dec 27, 2022 22:17
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DontMockMySmock posted:lmao what? it's been years since I read QC. it almost sounds like it's gotten good. I assure you it has not. While the description given is...technically accurate, it doesn't really capture the tone or focus 
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Dec 27, 2022 22:26
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CodfishCartographer posted:It's weird that there's like, a diner in the court after everything that's happened? I guess people need stability and comfort food in trying times, but I'm kind of under the impression that the only people left were like, the ones who don't really have much other choice or are planning on leaving via the sea. It was so Tom could do the visual scrying joke with the condiments.
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Dec 27, 2022 23:55
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DontMockMySmock posted:lmao what? it's been years since I read QC. it almost sounds like it's gotten good. Cubetown! It's on an oil rig, and the ferry is a wisecracking douche, and the security is bumbling, and the robots are made of water! So WaCkY!
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Dec 28, 2022 02:25
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That sure sounds like some content that is questionable
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Dec 28, 2022 02:37
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This latest page does absolutely nothing for me. If the comic had better pacing these days it might be a nice slow moment before some cool magic happens but as it stands it’s just empty.
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Dec 28, 2022 09:42
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I think today's page is pretty and conveys a calm before the storm. I really get a sense of the wind building on the cliff and a feeling of magic in the air. While I haven't been happy with recent events, this is a good one.
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Dec 28, 2022 10:05
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Yeah it's a nice page. Nice location artwork.
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Dec 28, 2022 10:21
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"actually, adults are imperfect, good and evil are not purely expressed via the means of being a jolly or mean teacher, most people don't have neat childhood sweetheart romances that last their entire lifetime, etc." are standard bildung narrative fare but they're best when cued in elegantly as B-plot resolutions as the A-plot coalesces here we have the bones - hey protag, other people have inner lives and motivations too (via the narrative idiom of special abilities and secretive plots at magical boarding school) - but the pacing and timing all feel off. Moments revealing character motivations are rushed or dismissed, whilst panels linger on worldbuilding exposition that is told rather than shown, even when it seems obvious how to show it (hey Jennie has that locator spell she used on the ship back in Pivotal Narrative Moment! No, no, let's not allude to that at all, let's just have the character say they have a locator spell. Again.) ronya fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Dec 28, 2022 |
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Dec 28, 2022 18:59
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The ship was also like ten years ago though wasn’t it? Wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of readers just wouldn’t remember
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Dec 28, 2022 19:18
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e: nah
ronya fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Dec 29, 2022 |
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Dec 28, 2022 19:27
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There Bias Two posted:I think today's page is pretty and conveys a calm before the storm. I really get a sense of the wind building on the cliff and a feeling of magic in the air. While I haven't been happy with recent events, this is a good one. Yeah, the best result is the scrying spell immediately reveals a crisis that has to be addressed right away. Either Zimmy is captured or she's freaking out or both or something along those lines. Worst case is she's fine and they already know everything but lets have a little nice chit chat about some random stuff then the scene ends. Gamma got her hair done, what do you think Annie? It's very nice! We've had so much of the latter, so it's time for something to happen right? Come on let this lead to something actually happening right now. Add some urgency to this! You can do it Tom!
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Dec 29, 2022 01:52
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I will recant every criticism I've ever had of this comic if it just shows Zimmy and Gamma chilling at the diner they were just in, having some pancakes. Just missed 'em
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Dec 29, 2022 03:02
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i won't
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Dec 29, 2022 12:08
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Me reading the last panel: Oh my god 
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Dec 30, 2022 12:39
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pik_d posted:Me reading the last panel: Oh my god Even the characters are getting sick of re-hashing the plot points.
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Dec 30, 2022 13:29
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looks like he accidentally skipped a page
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Dec 30, 2022 14:41
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Oxxidation posted:looks like he accidentally skipped a page Oh lmao, that possibility didn't even occur to me because it didn't seem that out of place from the recent state of the comic
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Dec 30, 2022 14:45
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It turns out there are two Zimmys inside you, depending on if you are intending to come across her or not God I hope in the next panel she's just "wots all this then" all buzzsaw teeth as usual. I do like how these pages give characterization to Jenny though- her magic is still all edgy looking and based on alchemical circles so yeah she would probably have to do some personal growth to break away from that aesthetic and still perform it. That thing from before about Annie seeing her as a generic goth is a little less mean sounding as of this page. CJacobs fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Dec 30, 2022 |
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Dec 30, 2022 15:43
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My only real issue with the comic is this exact panel: Annie just kind of standing in the background with her arms folded while a friend of hers does something cool is like, the MO of this comic and I really would like her to do something with one of her own skills her god drat self one of these days.
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Dec 30, 2022 15:48
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Oh if I hard refresh there's a different page!
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Dec 30, 2022 15:52
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I'm still getting the wrong page so spoilers e: actually n/m you can all find out on monday happy new year! e: and that face on jenny ahahaha Splicer fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Dec 30, 2022 |
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Dec 30, 2022 15:52
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Splicer posted:I'm still getting the wrong page so spoilers lol "yeah I know" lol I'm now retroactively glad that my post was vague
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Dec 30, 2022 15:54
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pik_d posted:I'm now retroactively glad that my post was vague
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Dec 30, 2022 15:55
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I missed it and the edges of the panels are red so THAT'S RIGHT, IT'S ACTUALLY COYOTE
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Dec 30, 2022 15:59
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