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it’s been clearer than usual lately how the excision of Tony reduced Annie to a blank-eyed witness of whatever remained of the story
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Mar 20, 2024 20:41
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 17:13 |
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Gunnerkrigg Court: and then the angel made me watch as she killed my comic right in front of me
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Mar 20, 2024 20:49
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Y'know, you might be able to make loss.jpg out of the last few pages. I'm phone posting or I would try to tackle it myself.
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Mar 20, 2024 20:52
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lmao this edit makes Annie's pissed off expression extremely funny to me, like she's just had enough of this poo poo too
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Mar 20, 2024 20:57
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harsh but fair
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Mar 20, 2024 20:58
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Personally I think it’s great that the comic is gonna spend a week or more, recapping the arc of a central character for the readers who haven’t been paying attention this whole time.
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Mar 20, 2024 21:47
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Tiny Myers posted:lmao  "Mind Cagers" is definitely my favorite of the two.
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Mar 21, 2024 18:28
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Mar 22, 2024 17:50
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Change "everything" to "anything" and erase the "right away" and it's a little more accurate to the story.
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Mar 22, 2024 18:50
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Did we know that robot deliberately provoked the incident with the ship?
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Mar 22, 2024 18:55
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LegionAreI posted:Did we know that robot deliberately provoked the incident with the ship? Yup. Annie didn't, but this is reiterating stuff from the end of that chapter.
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Mar 22, 2024 19:20
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Yeah we pretty much did, though we didn't see him plan it. https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1450 "Yes we knew this would be the likely outcome '
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Mar 22, 2024 19:22
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Oh, cool, so we are actually getting the reveal that Robot was the "big bad" all along. So all hail our new robot overlord, Louis Cypher.
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Mar 22, 2024 19:28
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Randalor posted:Oh, cool, so we are actually getting the reveal that Robot was the "big bad" all along. So all hail our new robot overlord, Louis Cypher. Can we really call it a reveal if it's stuff we all knew already?
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Mar 22, 2024 19:38
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Azran posted:Can we really call it a reveal if it's stuff we all knew already? For those of us who forgot, it's a rereveal
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Mar 22, 2024 19:42
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Azran posted:Can we really call it a reveal if it's stuff we all knew already? Listen, at this point, I would expect a smashcut to Annie telling all this to Kat. "And then Robot revealed he was being everything!" "Haha jeez." I'm happy we're getting to see Robot reveal all this to Annie.
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Mar 22, 2024 19:44
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This is something that was foreshadowed and built up so much that it would be strange not to pay it off in some way, and obviously I’m not attached enough to what’s going on anymore to be very interested, but it’s so silly how abruptly this is wrapping up something that’s been running through the comic for like 10 years. I’m not asking for a multi-chapter resolution here, but using Zimmyworld to rapidly wipe the To Do list clean is so underwhelming. I can’t say I can think of clean way to thread it through the jumble of disassociated junk the plot has become though. It’s something where… everything post-Jeanne would need to be chopped off and re-written. Like with Tony and Kat and Loup and the Court as a whole… it feels like punches were pulled that shouldn’t have been. There doesn’t need to be any cartoon villainy, but at least some open antagonism, pushing the limits of moral ambiguity, some clear complicated motivations. You know… like what the Court did to Jeanne to begin with.
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Mar 22, 2024 20:30
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I know it's a beaten dead horse but holy poo poo it's been years and even with the emotional distance of time I still cannot believe that Tony wasn't meant to be the abusive father he so very obviously was depicted as. That seriously broke the comic. The Tree and the very following chapters were so effective and chilling depicting Annie's emotional regression and backslide into trauma and we are supposed to believe that, no no, Tony is flawed, but actually deep down he is fun and good, he's just misunderstood, anyone who gives him a fair chance comes to like him, no, you can't see what made Kat flip alliances, nope. How were we not meant to sympathize with the incredibly traumatized, abandoned, neglected and socially isolated girl who was orphaned and immediately shipped by her only remaining family, an emotionally distant father, to a strange boarding school. HOW. Abuse doesn't require intent! You can gently caress up your children without meaning to! You don't have to be a mustache twirling evil villainous monster to abuse those closest to you! I will die mad about this apparently! isasphere fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Mar 22, 2024 |
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Mar 22, 2024 21:48
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I do wonder what the original plan for him was supposed to be. he was never interesting when the comic tried to show his “good” side so I’m sure it would have been difficult to take
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Mar 22, 2024 23:09
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I’m still on team “he was too good at the time artistically and he did a master class in visually rendering emotional abuse and trauma response.. without realising he’d stumbled way past cliched movies about learning the importance of family into genuinely disturbing.” The writing is pretty generic overall, it’s the art.
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Mar 22, 2024 23:57
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My suspicion is that maybe, just maybe, Tony really was supposed to be a Bad Dad in the beginning; but with age and changing mindsets, the author shifted from sympathizing more with Annie as a child and more with Tony as an adult, so he shifted gears and tried to make it something deep about how adults have hidden depths and don't judge the people who raised you too harshly, they tried their best within their limitations, etc.? They are both sort of the same character in some ways, but at different life stages.
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Mar 22, 2024 23:57
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Nuns with Guns posted:This is something that was foreshadowed and built up so much that it would be strange not to pay it off in some way, and obviously I’m not attached enough to what’s going on anymore to be very interested, but it’s so silly how abruptly this is wrapping up something that’s been running through the comic for like 10 years. I’m not asking for a multi-chapter resolution here, but using Zimmyworld to rapidly wipe the To Do list clean is so underwhelming. The Robot subplot has always been one of my favorite parts of the comic and I really wish this reveal could have happened in some other way. Right now it's hard to accept this because it's not even clear why Robot suddenly feels any of this was bad. Like, I assume he's going to say why at the end of the clip show, but it's an entire chapter of his arc that happened off panel. None of the reasons I can think off make sense to me. Is this because Sam died? That seems unlikely because this whole time Robot has been preaching things like the value of human fragility and "it was worth it." You'd think he'd be hype that a numen died and went into the ether. Is he worried that Kat/Annie is going to have to leave them to be a god or psychopomp or something? That's the best idea I have, but it doesn't feel right either. I doubt he suddenly just decided his behavior towards Kat was inappropriate right on the verge of achieving what he seemingly wanted.
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Mar 23, 2024 00:58
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Riot Bus posted:The Robot subplot has always been one of my favorite parts of the comic and I really wish this reveal could have happened in some other way. Right now it's hard to accept this because it's not even clear why Robot suddenly feels any of this was bad. Like, I assume he's going to say why at the end of the clip show, but it's an entire chapter of his arc that happened off panel. I don't know that robot feels this was bad or wouldn't do it again, so much as knew the consequences of being caught/called out on it were going to suck but felt compelled to do it regardless of the personal cost. Now that the actions are done and the inevitable consequences are here and there's nothing more that can be done, yeah, it's gonna suck, but I kind of doubt there's any actual "remorse" in a "wouldn't do it again" way, unless the zimmyverse magically granted him some insight that his motivations were flawed and the desired outcome won't happen anyways. So right now the only question is "will there actually be consequences" or will everything get handwaved resolved with kat saying "I thought it was lovely at the time but understand why you did it now because technobabble, all is forgiven, let's get you out of that pile of parts and put into a proper angel body"
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Mar 23, 2024 02:13
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It's cause he got turned into barnaclebot. He thinks this is a divine punishment or something. Which is a decent reason, but the reveal of all his machinations being flashbacks is really underwhelming.
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Mar 23, 2024 02:48
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isasphere posted:My suspicion is that maybe, just maybe, Tony really was supposed to be a Bad Dad in the beginning; but with age and changing mindsets, the author shifted from sympathizing more with Annie as a child and more with Tony as an adult, so he shifted gears and tried to make it something deep about how adults have hidden depths and don't judge the people who raised you too harshly, they tried their best within their limitations, etc.? if there was a shift then it happened early. the comic wants us to start having second doubts about tony after his very first display of raving angst, and "Get Lost" (which for me was the first real sign that something was badly askew with tony's presentation and the story's direction in general) was in may 2017, two years after he appeared
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Mar 23, 2024 05:56
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i think it's really cool how the comic has evolved into "the author is now either so insecure or so utterly not giving a poo poo about how to resolve the plot points he's set up that the main character simply gets to read the parts of the comic from back during where he did give more of a poo poo and exhibit basic competence in writing" edit: like seriously this is so bafflingly lazy. it's like the equivalent of a character just standing there telling you their life story in a video game. it's so blatantly "annie needs to know this for the plot to move forward" but the author couldn't think of a good way to have her learn this organically and time is running out and the plot needs to move forward. so now she just gets to, through the power of ~distortion~, instantly learn everything the audience knows through loving watching the comic on fast forward. but we also spent agonizing amounts of time poring over the minutiae of lana and loup's relationship! a million dragging, agonizing pages of 'haha did you know loup is young and in teen love'! dragging, agonizing pages of 'we're in zimmy's distortion. did you know? we're in zimmy's distortion, and that girl isn't normal, she might be zimmy'! like the pacing is so absolutely unhinged, it drags drags drags then it panics and hurries to get something over with as soon as possible, poo poo like 'yeah robot apparently told our two protagonists everything about loup COMPLETELY OFFSCREEN' or this mess etc etc Tiny Myers fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Mar 23, 2024 |
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Mar 23, 2024 18:24
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I completely agree. To continue the comparison to Jeanne that generally haunts this comic even worse than she haunted the river, the archival and historical research (including magic archives) it took to understand her situation and fix it was a really elegant way to get the readers and characters up to speed. This is just clumsy. It would also have been cool, if the numans are a big deal, to have one of them be the one to tell Kat and Annie what was happening. Make it clear that this is a cult and that Robot is doing cult leader poo poo - including emotionally manipulating members to maintain loyalty! That gives us an immediate hook to a numan, as a character, the one who actually left the cult. Maybe they’re the one numan who doesn’t like Kat, because they think Robot represents her real beliefs, and so boom: plot happens. A numan who makes trouble and is unfriendly towards K&A, prompting investigation or even serious conflict, ultimately to reveal that it’s because of Robot. An actual mystery plotline around this massive mystery, with the readers having the dramatic irony perspective of knowing who the villain is even as the main characters stumble through it. …somehow, Jojo’s Pt IV had tighter and more exciting teens-solving-mystery with better pacing than GKC. And as much as I enjoyed JJBA 4, ‘good’ is not how I’d describe that pacing.
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Mar 23, 2024 18:52
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Joe Slowboat posted:It would also have been cool, if the numans are a big deal, to have one of them be the one to tell Kat and Annie what was happening. Make it clear that this is a cult and that Robot is doing cult leader poo poo - including emotionally manipulating members to maintain loyalty! That gives us an immediate hook to a numan, as a character, the one who actually left the cult. Maybe they’re the one numan who doesn’t like Kat, because they think Robot represents her real beliefs, and so boom: plot happens. A numan who makes trouble and is unfriendly towards K&A, prompting investigation or even serious conflict, ultimately to reveal that it’s because of Robot. An actual mystery plotline around this massive mystery, with the readers having the dramatic irony perspective of knowing who the villain is even as the main characters stumble through it. It's not like we had a whole segment with a random faceless numan dying who we could've benefited from an emotional connection to, or them having literally any conflict about the prospect of being brought into the ether
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Mar 23, 2024 20:49
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Tiny Myers posted:It's not like we had a whole segment with a random faceless numan dying who we could've benefited from an emotional connection to, or them having literally any conflict about the prospect of being brought into the ether Uhm, he was hopeful that he did a good job with the pipes, and at being a person (meaning of being a person to him undefined) so I don't know what you're talking about.
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Mar 23, 2024 21:00
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Ursine Catastrophe posted:I don't know that robot feels this was bad or wouldn't do it again, so much as knew the consequences of being caught/called out on it were going to suck but felt compelled to do it regardless of the personal cost. Now that the actions are done and the inevitable consequences are here and there's nothing more that can be done, yeah, it's gonna suck, but I kind of doubt there's any actual "remorse" in a "wouldn't do it again" way, unless the zimmyverse magically granted him some insight that his motivations were flawed and the desired outcome won't happen anyways. It'll feel kind of bad if this just ends with Robot being a hypocrite. The other Seraphs bore the blame and were outcast, they didn't even get to be New People while Robot ran things behind the scene and enjoyed Kat's friendship. If Robot is just gonna end up being sorry because he finally got called out then that's the least satisfying outcome.
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Mar 25, 2024 09:33
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Oh... Gunnerkrigg Court...
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Mar 25, 2024 14:02
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CodfishCartographer posted:Oh... Gunnerkrigg Court...
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Mar 25, 2024 14:52
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Can we please stop having long running plot lines be hurriedly wrapped up inside Zimmie montage dream worlds why bother concluding a story naturally and within the context of a story when you can just throw a bunch of dream imagery at the wall that reveals everything and have an immediate contrived resolution because in here everything is possible? is this better or worse than a guy in a hawaiian t-shirt explaining what the entire plot of the comic had been in 3 pages while the main characters stare at him and say "that makes no sense" and he responds with "but it's still true" FlocksOfMice fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Mar 25, 2024 |
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Mar 25, 2024 15:19
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Yeah this kinda feels like the part in Chrono Cross where ghostly visons of the Chrono Trigger characters as children explain the entire plot to you
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Mar 25, 2024 16:23
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CodfishCartographer posted:Oh... Gunnerkrigg Court...
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Mar 25, 2024 16:33
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Rotten Red Rod posted:Yeah this kinda feels like the part in Chrono Cross where ghostly visons of the Chrono Trigger characters as children explain the entire plot to you Honestly, for stuff like "a subplot that's been ongoing since near the start of the comic up to now" seems like EXACTLY the time you want a plot summary, and it's even to someone who's A)a main character and B)was kept in the dark about all of this. We get a refresher on what crap Robot was up to, AND see Annie's reaction to the revelation! Good thing there was nothing else going on in the comic, though. Man, could you imagine interrupting a major storyline like "reality warpers at each others throats" while this is going on?
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Mar 25, 2024 17:42
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Just remembered Tony explained the Omega device to Annie entirely off-screen. Just casually solving one of the biggest mysteries in the comic from the character who infamously is unable to speak to Annie.
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Mar 25, 2024 19:23
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CodfishCartographer posted:Just remembered Tony explained the Omega device to Annie entirely off-screen. Just casually solving one of the biggest mysteries in the comic from the character who infamously is unable to speak to Annie. Well, yeah, because it needed to be told to the most important character in the comic, Loup.
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Mar 25, 2024 19:31
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CodfishCartographer posted:Oh... Gunnerkrigg Court...
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Mar 25, 2024 20:19
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oh, robot... oh... shadow... CodfishCartographer posted:Oh... Gunnerkrigg Court...
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Mar 26, 2024 00:43
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