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As someone who grew up emotionally neglected and at times emotionally abused by their distant father, seeing him treat other people differently definitely did not make me feel better about him. It made me feel worse and wonder what was wrong with me that I did not deserve that same courtesy. I'm not sure any justification would've made it better at that point. I had a lot of people in my life defending him saying "he has his reasons" or "oh he's trying, he's just taking small steps, it's hard for him" which Also made it worse. I also sometimes defended him and idolized him along the way, but knowing he treated people differently and had that capacity within himself and was unable to extend it to me actively made it worse and defrayed what was left of my existing relationship with him. Knowing the reasons he is the way he is did not make anything better, even if they were sympathetic ones, like having been subject to his own parental abuse. Yes I am in therapy and have been for years. I'm not saying my reaction is everyone's, that there is one de facto way to respond to parental neglect, that it has to necessarily be Annie's. But I am saying that I can understand why someone would describe her reaction as unrealistic, because for my own circumstances, it absolutely would have been. Ever since Tony's return, I have been largely completely unable to relate to her actions or reactions. Something to think about maybe. Or don't, you don't have to. v  vAnyway is it just me or does it feel like the pacing has kind of ground to a halt after the chapter end? I don't feel like there's really a sense of urgency or climax here, like I was expecting more after all of the buildup to Loup blowing up. Especially with Coyote talking about how Annie had to kill him. Just kind of feels like the comic keeps building then deflating, building then deflating, and I'm getting flashbacks to Homestuck.
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Oct 17, 2021 08:36
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CodfishCartographer posted:I think the problem for me isn't really Annie's reaction, but rather how the comic frames her reaction. Yeah, people can definitely react like Annie and it's unhealthy to do so. However, the comic seems to frame her reaction as a good thing, or that it's inspiring or the correct way for them to move forward. Here's an effort post I made some time after Annie's monologue: Your effortpost basically sums up my feelings about it. You can argue that Annie isn't the protagonist anymore, yeah, but she still felt like she was bizarrely monologuing at the viewer without any outside criticism. It felt very much like trying to be a "final word" on the subject that we were supposed to interpret in a positive sense. Yeah, comics are allowed to portray people with incorrect opinions or bad things occurring and that doesn't automatically mean it's a ringing endorsement, but they typically need to come with SOME sense of narrative condemnation, either immediately or later on. The effortpost lists a lot of ways that could've been done. But here, there was just... nothing countering it, and that has continued to be the case. And the comments on every page from that arc proved that the broad crowd consensus was "yeah, you tell em, Annie!" and taking this as a Good Thing and cheering her on. Like, you can argue "you're not supposed to see it as healthy or good!" but the audience is clearly taking it in that way so either that's how it's meant or the writer has done a bad job of getting that across. In summation: Oxxidation posted: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 I agree with others that it feels like the comic is trying to wrap up towards some sort of climax but seems to be fumbling along the way. IMO either killing Coyote was a mistake or, if you were going to kill Coyote, making Loup was a mistake. He lacks any presence compared to Coyote or Ysengrin. I understand that's halfway the point, that Loup acts like a petulant child who is less than the sum of his parts, but it feels pretty late into the comic to be floundering to build any presence or threat with this brand new villain who replaced two established and threatening characters we liked a lot. Like, oh, he just attacked the court... more than he already did... and apparently was strong enough to do this this whole time and didn't for some reason... and we've already been shown 80% of the characters we care about are safe...  It feels like it's trying to show how powerful he is and build up to some confrontation, but I just don't feel any weight to any of it.If anyone's familiar with Death Note, it reminds me a lot of when they killed L, the series' most interesting character, as a means of escalation then had to go "oh poo poo that was actually the most interesting character" and introduced a late-game replacement who we just had no reason to care about at that point and thus deflated a lot of the series' interest. I also feel like the whole plot thread with trying to figure out the mystery of the Court and the seed Bismuth and the court's founders and all that was just sort of dropped? Like I guess they went into it a little bit with Jeanne, was that supposed to be the conclusion of that plot point? Tiny Myers fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Oct 17, 2021 |
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Oct 17, 2021 21:34
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I mean, I still feel like Annie is the protagonist, ultimately, but it's an argument I've seen a lot, that the narrative has moved away from her and no longer tells things from her perspective like it did at the start of the comic. And it's true that the story has drawn away from Annie somewhat (and also significantly cut down on the agency she has to actually affect anything in a way typical of a YA protagonist - was very exciting thinking she'd have some for 2 seconds when she turned into a fire elemental last chapter then that fizzled out again). It doesn't mean I expect her to narrate out everything like I'm reading a children's book nor was I saying she should, but I've seen people rebut "she is the protagonist and if she is speaking directly to the camera self-assuredly while talking to The Most Impartial Observer character for like 8 pages with zero rebuttal since then we can probably assume we are meant to take this at face value to some degree" with "well you're not supposed to believe everything she says she's a child she's just a character in the cast now" blah blah. But then insert everything Joe Slowboat said about how it's framed in such a way that I see no other way to take it given every single part of how this comic has been executed up until that point, and if you kept up with the comments for those pages (which are now lost to time, unfortunately), it obviously was being taken at face value by a significant portion of the audience. Honestly cannot emptyquote the above post enough, very well said. I don't know why the weird condescending bit about the Bible and implying I have the comprehension skills of a child for acknowledging that argument, I feel like that was unnecessary.
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Oct 18, 2021 00:06
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Hodgepodge posted:I mean, it should probably give you pause to consider how easily this was cleared up with people whose objections (at least explicitly; I don't know for sure yours are not) came from actual experience with abuse. It can be hard to explain why an interpretation is wrong if someone is really attached to it, but in an abstract way that's more about underlying assumptions than personal experience. It's very interesting to me that you're saying "this was easily cleared up with people whose objections came from actual experience with abuse" when a few posts ago you called me, the Actual Abuse Survivor who made it clear I have experience near to Annie's that I have had to receive therapy for, "a child compared to people who lived 5000 years ago" for the crime of acknowledging (but not agreeing with!) the fact that some people argue Annie is no longer the protagonist in order to defend The Mind Cage's wack monologue. Which you did not apologize for even when I and others pointed out it was really weird and condescending, much like the bulk of your posts in the last few pages. No, it was not cleared up, and I still disagree with you. I am saying this to you with kindness and imploring you to seriously consider it: If multiple people are saying you're being weird and that you are the problem, then at a certain point you need to stop saying "but I just didn't explain my point well enough, my point is correct, if people don't understand then I just need to find the magic combination of words to MAKE them understand" and look in the mirror and consider for a second if they just might have a point.
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Oct 18, 2021 04:32
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Negative Nancy stuff below if you want to avoid it. Sorry. I can't say I really understand why Annie is going out of her way to comfort this complete stranger when they just ran a dangerous experiment that could've resulted in dozens of people being killed and she's had less reason to trust the Court's employees than ever, including the shadow men who have acted a bit condescending to her at every turn. I feel like it wouldn't really be my first impulse to comfort someone who's angry about their secretive experiment blowing up and bringing consequences to one of the people who willingly endangered me to perform it without my knowledge. Like, this very possibly DID kill people! And Shell is defensive and upset, which isn't exactly the kind of attitude that makes me want to approach a stranger I have reasons to be hostile to. Shell is cute and all, but it just sort of feels like it's dragging on a bit for several pages about a character we barely know anything about? I guess the point is that they can't do much other than wait for Parley? But she could've gone and checked on the forest creatures herself as their medium instead of sending Cvet to do it, a big rear end dragon with sharp teeth who doesn't exactly have the social tact to avoid threatening rabbits and fairies. Meanwhile, Cvet probably would've loved to fluster Shell some more and talk all about her relationship issues. The sense of urgency about "oh we're trapped and in danger and have no idea what Loup's planning after he went completely berserk and creatures from the forest like ashrays could attack us especially now that the robot barrier is down, a thing that's common enough that it poses a regular threat if you travel through certain zones" doesn't really feel present as is, let alone with the segue into maybe-unrequited-crush slapstick/drama. Like, the expressions are cute, but I'd expect this sort of scene for... I don't know, a character we actually know? The stuff with teasing her and the fairies flustering her sort of falls flat for me when I barely know this character. Her characterization kind of begins and ends with "she really likes this one guy". That aside, interesting that she says "Omega said". Implies it's a person. Like, that's sort of an unnatural way to say it if it's an object - you'd be more likely to say "The Omega device said..." or whatever. I guess I shouldn't be surprised when Zimmy and Gamma are people, but everything up until this point has been alluding to it being mechanical rather than a person. (But of course, those aren't exclusive categories, see: what Kat's been doing. Maybe the prominence of that storyline isn't a coincidence and the court is doing something similar.)
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Oct 27, 2021 11:20
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There Bias Two posted:Hell, with all the time travel going on, maybe Robot Goddess Kat *is* Omega. This actually feels possible. I've always thought it weird that the Court seems to be letting her casually liberate their workforce from their mechanical bodies and giving them new lives. In general, just... making an entirely new species and effectively creating life from nothing. Like, yeah, something something Juliette and the Seraph robots trying to keep her work under wraps, but that falls apart once the first new human-robot walks around in the Court, and even before that, it's no secret they keep tabs on their students, including trackers in their food. They'd never send someone down to check out her warehouse or investigate what she's doing with all the parts she's ordering? Her being key to their research would make a lot of sense. Plus, this is just a few chapters apart, with very similar wording. https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2265 https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2430 A way of looking into the unseen world. Something that Kat is coincidentally developing in a way that is implied to be much different from the way, say, Annie might see it. For example: the way she saw ROTD distilled extremely plainly, and how easily she seems to grok a lot of things that are so complicated they're not supposed to be understandable by humans, like robot code, or when she helped Annie save Jeanne's boyfriend from his shackles despite it being an intensely complex, maze-like device that was never meant to be undone. Zimmy also goes on to say that it's "a bunch of stuff that is only explained by not having an explanation", and talks about how it drives the court (and Kat) crazy. Perhaps Kat's true power lies in being able to distill the unexplainable into the explainable. We've seen her be obsessed with trying to solve and explain it several times throughout the comic. The omega device would then not just peer into the ether, but also simplify it into easy, digestible, recordable information. There's also been some foreshadowing about Kat going down a darker path. "You gotta keep an eye on her." "She almost went down a dark road." As well as the implication that Kat has an alternate-timeline self that lost Annie that had to break time to save her, and talk of alternate timeline selves in general. Could be that Omega is Kat from an alternate timeline, or similar.
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Oct 27, 2021 11:52
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I agree that the comic has had a lot of solid writing and storytelling, but it's also been loving wild going back through the archives and seeing how much agency Annie had compared to how much she does now. It feels like the comic moved from a sort of cartoonish hijinks with occasional seriousness to seriousness with occasional hijinks and Tom hasn't been really sure how to handle that adjustment. Like, I was rereading this chapter: https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=596 Annie and her classmates are forced to camp out in the forest, turns out the adults orchestrated a silly ghost mystery where they kidnap students to make the trip more interesting, blah blah. Annie figures out what they're doing immediately, figures out that this woman is a dryad, orchestrates a plan with an ability she just learned a few pages ago (the ability to write messages with her stone) and an ability she just learned a few chapters ago (using her blinker stone), knows exactly how to stop the dryad from going into the house, is able to create an illusion of a fake forest fire when we only previously saw her using it to create a fake campfire, et cetera. All while she is significantly younger than she is now. Like, obviously "silly prank by your teachers while you're surrounded by laser cows" is a FAR cry from "etheric god blows up forest" and I'm sure her lack of agency is meant to emphasize how out of her depth she is now, but it's just been nonstop of the plot just sort of... happening to her, when she used to be way more competent and capable of creative problem-solving in most chapters. Sure, it's REALISTIC for her to be out of her depth, but this has always been a YA novel kind of thing where the adults are useless and the kids are unrealistically competent. The switch feels jarring and like the writer isn't sure how to gracefully handle the escalation of consequences. It's why the "Dealing with HER" chapter was such a breath of fresh air. We got to see Annie figure something out and solve a problem, and do so in a way that was interesting and compelling and required her using the knowledge she'd earned while also learning a lesson (making peace with her weird shifted cloneself). It felt much more in line with the tone of earlier chapters. I'm not saying I want Annie to rambo her way in and kill Loup right now, or start lasering her way through an unstable cave ceiling, but I feel like there's some balance to be struck between "unrealistically in control" and "helpless" and Tom hasn't figured it out and it's been growing increasingly unsatisfying ever since around the Jeanne chapter. I dunno, maybe the moral of Gunnerkrigg Court is that the older you get, the more useless you become?  I keep reading because I used to like this comic a lot and it has a lot of interesting ideas bubbling under the surface that I'd LOVE to see come to fruition (Kat breaking through to the ether like whatever happened with her inventing that green device to brute force it that I don't remember them explaining if they did?, a new society of human robots and the social repercussions of that, whatever Coyote is planning, Omega), but every slew of baffling pages with baffling choices strains my patience and makes me wonder if I should just come back in a few years to see if it's gone anywhere.
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Oct 27, 2021 23:16
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Tony's appearance feels really... inconsistent through the comic. I know he's supposed to be more frazzled and haggard here, but but this isn't the first time I've thought "huh, he sure looks different." Maybe I'll dig up more examples later.   
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Nov 1, 2021 08:23
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A big flaming stink posted:.....is this really going to be a thing hanging over the characters for an interminable amount of time? Coyote gave her his tooth back in Chapter 26, or February 2010. Chekov's gun: on the shelf. Comic: Hey do you remember the Chekov's gun? Comic: The gun. It's still there. We brought it out for a second, but it's back on the shelf. Comic: The gun continues to be a thing. Comic: Comic, 11 years later: A character is textually saying YOU WILL HAVE TO TAKE THE GUN OFF OF THE SHELF AND KILL THIS PERSON WITH IT. Comic: Comic: Comic: Comic: Here's a character you know nothing about having some personal romance drama after nearly killing the protagonist with a botched experiment. Comic: Anyway the gun is on the shelf. The guy who wants it has disappeared. Maybe, sort of soon, he might, possibly, make an attempt on the life of the person who's carrying the gun, who isn't even the person who is supposed to use it. Gotta be careful. Comic: Just wanted to remind you of the gun. Still a thing. Maybe we'll even see it, someday.
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Nov 5, 2021 12:19
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I feel like I remember someone saying that Tom said Shell was not trans, but I can't find a source for that. That's not me wanting to quash theories or anything, I am trans and love trans readings of characters and would love to be wrong. That said, Robot read clearly to me as trans in the "She Gave Us An Ocean" chapter, unless it's not supposed to be Robot saying "yeah the pretty lady is what I want my body to be" at the chapter end there.
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Nov 5, 2021 21:40
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Why does Annie care so much about Shell. Plot's moving? Exposition and planning? No gotta get her back in the frame
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Nov 8, 2021 09:27
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Yeah everyone on this page effectively conveyed my grievances better than I could've. But on top of that:quote:Because she's a decent human being showing a shred of concern for a person who just had a crisis in front of her jesus christ this isn't meant to be a mystery it's called empathy and many people have it It's not that I'm incapable of understanding Annie has human empathy. It's that we already had a whole rear end page of her comforting her that ended on her saying something that obviously touched Shell and made her feel better. It didn't feel as if there needed to be any more than that.  Annie believes Renard is in significant danger right now, and casually drops a bomb of information on him but then stops without any elaboration because she... wants to go talk to the person who she already comforted, who she has never before spoken to, who is a member of the organization that nearly got all of them killed and just caused a horrible catastrophe that endangered the lives of the forest animals, who Annie is supposed to be responsible for and protective of as their medium. It feels weird that she's not madder about the fact that they could've died. It feels weird that she's not madder about the fact that she and her friends nearly died. All because of their arrogance and refusal to mention to Annie or anyone else involved "hey yeah we're going to try to steal the god's power lol you might wanna stand back". Shell is part of that. Shell is actively supporting that that happened and argues that it wasn't a mistake because the readouts showed it would be fine. Like others said, it feels weird that this is what Annie cares about right now in the immediate aftermath of a catastrophe where one of her closest friends is in mortal danger and she's just been told she has to kill a god. The brakes being put on the pacing for a few pages of Shell making cartoon faces was already frustrating after it seemed like something was finally happening, to the point that it's a LITTLE annoying for the comic to go right back to that when it felt like they'd at least put a bow on it and said "time to move on to the central plot". And, like others said, it'd be easier to trust it was going somewhere if Tom hadn't botched the landing with a few extremely important storylines of late.
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Nov 9, 2021 00:41
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"It'll be safer because they won't be able to cross the ocean!  ...Wait, what do you mean, 'that's vampires, not wolves'?" Credit where credit's due as someone who's been a vocal complainer, this is a cool bomb to drop and I like it and am excited to see where it goes!  That explains why they've been dismantling the power station and whatnot. Very pragmatic of the Court to cut their losses, take their ball, and go home.
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Nov 12, 2021 09:45
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We've seen various hints at the court's true motivations, and it all seems to coalesce back on the Ether in some way. Coyote says Gunnerkrigg Court "is mankind's endeavor to become God." He calls Aata a "failed cousin" (presumably in the sense of godhood) and says he's bitter. The court has been doing experiments with the Ether and Coyote was very purposely trying to lead Annie to this knowledge and to what degree the Ether can shape reality profoundly, through things like myth. Renard was very upset to hear they were experimenting with the Ether, saying they would meddle with the very fabric of creation, and "to what end". And Omega seems to have something to do with Zimmy or be similar to her in some sense, who is capable of broadly affecting the world around her, except not really on purpose (but also somewhat on purpose, because she put the Annies back together, I guess?). Zimmy also makes mention that the court not being able to see through to the unseen world is driving them nuts and they seek to put it in terms they can understand. It seems pretty clear to me that their motivation is to harness and control the Ether, because they don't like having poo poo not explained by science, and through methodically controlling it can do all kinds of poo poo (like create immortality, for instance) and stop what they see as posturing rabid animals from having any control over them.
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Nov 13, 2021 05:25
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Rereading that, I'm shocked at the breakneck pace and how much agency and competency everyone has. Like, an entire boat gets hijacked by a robot overmind, holds everyone hostage and takes out Annie's powers, but they pull together and use their individual powers to create a victory that feels a little fantastical but ultimately earned. It's nice. It felt like showing how competent and confident Annie had become, and how much she could rely on her friends, before kind of... I don't know, knocking her down a peg with the Tony chapter. Also, wow, how long the "Kat is some kind of robot angel and is aware of that" thing has been a plot point without really ever being addressed. At the end of Jeanne's chapter, Annie was like "Kat what the gently caress" and Kat said "we'll talk about it later" and then just sort of... never addressed that major thing I guess? I mean, yeah they've been busy, but also they've had bare minimum 6 months to address it (considering that's how much time passed since Annie went into the forest). Maybe it was handled offscreen just like the important scene where Annie apparently demanded to be able to wear her makeup again. (I also don't really get why Zimmy was affected by the rain? I thought the whole thing with the ether experiment was that it didn't affect her like normal rain did.) Not to be completely negative or anything. I do love the designs of these two new characters and it would be cool if they stuck around.
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Nov 26, 2021 20:50
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A big flaming stink posted:The rain causes her to undergo a backlash because it does not relieve her pressure like normal rain does. They say "the ether thingies broke so rain is gonna fall, make sure Zimmy's outside". Why is the artificial ether rain fine here but it wasn't back in the Power Station chapter?    
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Nov 27, 2021 07:20
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Come to think of it, there's a big elephant in the room they haven't addressed yet. Being alive, with all its joys, means the eventuality of death. It's possible their CPU chip is in there but it seems more like the information is being transferred straight into pure flesh bodies. And a huge prior focus of the comic has been psychopomps, the ether, and how every living creature needs SOMETHING to take it there or else they'll be stuck. Especially with how these robots don't seem too aware of their own limitations, it's possible one of them might do something stupid like, say, trying to cut off part of their body. Is it possible Kat will become a psychopomp?
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Dec 9, 2021 22:39
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It's just a very good question of, "who is going to take these people into the ether". The psychopomps are implied to be based on religious beliefs or locale to some degree (it's hard to say which when they only say "jurisdiction", I interpreted it to be on religious beliefs but I actually don't know what it's based on? And Ketrak covers insects, presumably there are animal-only psychopomps and ones unique to forest creatures). So presumably a robot would need its own thing.
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Dec 10, 2021 01:55
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Actually, maybe this is the real answer to Annie's family not dying every time they have a kid. Just transfer the consciousness into an artificial body 
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Dec 10, 2021 12:00
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Twenty Four posted:My first thought was "Am I missing something? I don't see what this has to do with eastern European mafia?" lol Can't wait to see all the robots doing a slav squat
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Dec 11, 2021 18:58
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It just feels like the two Annies plot point is leading to "and now you can have a child for free without it murdering you!" which feels kind of unearned when the profound trauma of Surma's death on so many people in the comic is such a looming spectre. Like it feels like that's the entire reason it happened, so she could pull out that extra flame later. Which, I don't want Annie to die, and I think her having two flames is a cool way to resolve it, but it would feel unsatisfying because the entire anniemerge was unsatisfying. It was effectively killing a character we liked offscreen. Now you see them now you don't. That chapter was so confusing to me that I actually did not realize what had happened until I went and read people talking about it. Like, it would've been cool if they had to gripe with the issue of both of them having individual sentience and personhood and having to pick one to "sacrifice" by merging into the other, as was foreshadowed previously by someone asking which one would be merged, and that sacrifice ultimately being what results in her being able to have a child without issue. One life for another. Instead Zimmy waggles her fingers and now they're merged with no contemplation on that serious moral quandary and eventually Annie is gonna be like "wow I'm not dying from having a child cool (AUTHOR'S NOTE: SEE CHAPTER 79, TRUE BELIEVERS)" ("Why do you think Annie's going to have a child?" Coyote said v  v)Also, not looking forward to the retrospective on The Mind Cage. To add positive content to the thread I think the new robot is cute. I was discontent with the hyperfocus on Shell but I find this chapter actually interesting because it's giving us new information (how human2 robots function and deal with human emotions, and how the human2 society looks and is structured). Also I like Jerrek's design. I actually wonder if the old Court is going to end up being a city for the human2 robots to live in, since it's being conveniently abandoned and all. Dunno how they'll deal with Loup, but it seems fitting the city they were forced to protect by an override in their brains that put them in mortal danger is now theirs to keep.
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Dec 19, 2021 22:38
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Niavmai posted:there are two wolves inside of you  I am cautiously optimistic and hope this leads somewhere - I've definitely wanted to see the Court's reaction to Kat casually turning their workforce into autonomous human beings and ascending to godhood, and it would be cool if there was something about Shell agreeing to keep the secret after seeing it firsthand - but holy poo poo if it's 5 pages of her blushing nervously about going on a date with Aata I will exhale angrily through my nose then keep reading this comic anyway because I apparently have brain problems relating to sunk cost fallacies And credit where credit's due, I love that last panel with her extremely angry look contrasted with "THANK YOU. I LOVE THIS DRESS.". Reminds me of some of the comic's better humor moments.
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Dec 23, 2021 01:08
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I think we can reasonably assume her middle initial is T. Arizona T.
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Dec 24, 2021 11:46
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I don't think there's anything wrong with looking at a name you never actually canonized in-universe and saying "actually this could be better". It's not the hallmark of a bad writer to change some things as you go, it's actually pretty normal. That said, her inclusion into the story and taking up the spotlight on the screen feels a little abrupt, and I can see why people who are already disillusioned with this comic would take the name thing as another sign of Chell in general being a weird, rushed development in a series of them. I don't think it would've been an issue with anyone if not for the Hashtag Issues with pacing and story resolution as of late. I don't mind the name change. I am cautiously optimistic about her inclusion into the story at this point, because I think this could go somewhere cool. I just hope it doesn't swerve back into I D-D-D-D-D-DEFINITELY DON'T HAVE A C-C-C-C-CRUSH
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Dec 26, 2021 08:56
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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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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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coolusername posted: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. Me: Huh I wonder what those comments are li  You want some author psychoanalysis? I think Tom is a sociopath for approving this and therefore making me read it with my eyeballs
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Dec 29, 2021 05:42
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Oxxidation posted:shell sucks Oh wait I forgot Red went off on a bizarre teardown of Annie that was ultimately completely pointless because Kat told her none of it was true and she did nothing wrong 5 minutes later, and therefore felt like a weird excuse to castigate Annie some more, the thing that this comic loves. And now she's gone forever because who needs two of the most interesting characters in the comic when they can say "gently caress you" to the protagonist and ollie out for no real practical reason. Seriously why did that chapter exist. "To provide a consequence to annie"? I mean, see: psychopomps, see: everything with Loup... The 7th Guest posted:that shell is a fun character, there hasn't been a tonal shift, and the comic has always read better in chunks than singular updates I also disagree that there is no difference in how the chapters are being written. Annie has had a significant loss of agency IMO. But I respect your opinions and I do think that mock threads can turn into vile little dens of weird garbage which is not an ideal fate. That said, I think it's a bad sign that an increasing amount of people are expressing dissatisfaction with the comic and points to legitimate problems with it that are not an issue of serial vs non.
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Dec 29, 2021 05:52
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Patware posted:when k6bd ends i think that's the last one i still care about Try Sleepless Domain. That's the good poo poo Also, new page. At least we're getting somewhat into the structure of the Shadow Men and how the Court's move is going to be handled. I wonder if "the seed Bismuth" is something grown with Ether kind of like one would water a real seed. So they wanted to use Coyote's power and now that they don't have that option, they're looking for something else to water it. Maybe Coyote helped water it in the beginning of things. Kind of confused why if Aata is the head of the organization he was removed. Like, can't you write your own rules? Who oversees it?
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Dec 29, 2021 09:26
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I think something important to note is that the comic has implied on multiple occasions that retroactive changes are possible. It's not just "this dog can gently caress with reality so that gravity no work anymore", it's "this dog can gently caress with reality so that the court never existed". That's a really huge thing to leave unchecked and I can see why they'd want to prevent it from happening. Jones outright says this. She didn't exist, but she did. She remembers existing, and the planet certainly remembers her, but humans supposedly made her long afterward. She also remembers the stars in the sky, even if multiple creatures claim to have put them there eons later.  And in the next couple of comics after it, Jones points out that Coyote was deliberately trying to get Annie to know this, and to put two and two together that the court is loving with the Ether. The person who has control over the Ether has control over literally everything - past, present, and future. This is also foreshadowed in some ways with Kat's tiktok chapter, imo. She apparently comes to the Norns on many occasions. To what end? To exert control over time, apparently. Why the Norns allow her is an interesting question. I think she's supposed to be kind of a parallel to the Court, with similar questions about the ether and similar attempts to control it. Also, I'm guessing that Aata's motivations =/= the court's motivations. It's very possible the court would love to manipulate the Ether so that they are the most important government entity in the world, they have way more power than they do now, and they can create a foundation to systematically cage up every ether-loving weirdo animal. You could call it the Screwy Creature Prison foundation. Aata wants to understand everything that can be understood, and for things that cannot be understood, make them understandable. And the Court wants to harness it. To what end? We're not sure yet, but they wanted Coyote's power for it. Aata may have participated in that, but I'm wondering if he didn't realize the extent of what the Court might do with it. But we really don't know enough about the Court's structure to say that, I guess, because... why the hell would we know those things after almost 20 years of comic I guess,
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Jan 8, 2022 08:56
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Oxxidation posted:she looks like a drat muppet That's at least partially because her mouth shouldn't be doing that. The jaw operates on a hinge and even at its widest open, the teeth on the bottom row are going to be angled downward. It's not a square shape. Here's a quick and dirty edit:  Yeah yeah human eyes aren't supposed to be that small and Shell's head is too big for her shoulders if we're nitpicking, that's all fine and deliberate stylization, and I'm sure this is too, it's not like Tom is a bad artist, but this panel did stick out to me as weird.
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Jan 10, 2022 21:52
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Yeah I was really confused for a second there. Like weird tangent but go off
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Jan 12, 2022 16:22
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What I find very interesting is that it's been directly implied most (if not all?) of the Forest students are able to interface with the ether. They seem to be the vast majority of the Court's computing. Did Omega take this over for them, or do they have a replacement? What are they going to do with the students, give them all names and tell them "take a hike, good luck"? Between the Forest students and the robots' new bodies, they seem like they're losing a lot of their workforce. Those seem like obvious questions to be asked.
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Jan 12, 2022 18:42
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I don't really know why this is being treated like a big stinger moment with a closeup on Kat's face. Kat's mom cannot go because she is capable of wielding the ether. Kat's father would not go, because he loves his wife and would be pissed off that she's excluded after all she's done for the court. Kat's best friend cannot go because she is capable of wielding the ether. The best friend she just broke time and space for. Nor can Robot, or Renard, or Shadow. The entirety of robot civilization she just got done making and has been passionately throwing herself into, also unable to go. I feel like if she chose to go anyway it would feel out of character on the level of that time that she magically became besties with Tony overnight because he likes a science and that somehow is more important than the emotional neglect she witnessed her best friend go through for years of critical childhood development. Maybe Paz will go because magic talents are somehow cool and okay and have nothing to do with the ether? And Kat wants to be with her love? That feels like the only angle you could lean on to make it anywhere close to believable. That said, one question I am very interested in is this: What will happen to Jones? They say nonhumans aren't allowed, but Jones is one of their best assets and has been for quite some time. But she's inarguably not human, physically and mentally. It would be interesting if they had some hypocrisy in that regard.
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Jan 14, 2022 22:06
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It's unclear whether that counts as interacting with the ether or not. We've been told the court specifically seeks out and cultivates people with Special Talents, such as Paz's ability to speak with animals. Similarly, Kat has an obvious supernatural affinity for robotics that goes far beyond simple "gifted student", whether she'd admit it to herself or not. So if they're accepting that, it stands to reason they'd allow Paz, as well, because neither of them peer directly into the ether (yet?) that we're aware of. But Kat was probably grandfathered into the court as a result of her mom working there, so it's possible they don't understand the full extent of her gift, unlike Paz. They didn't notice or care about her etherically creating a body for a boat robot, either, I guess? Just chocked that one up to Zimmy magic and didn't pursue it any further? It raises a lot of questions about where the line between "student that fucks with the Ether" and "student that has Special Powers" is drawn. Feels a little arbitrary, tbh.
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Jan 15, 2022 02:55
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 Remember when this happened in 2016? Did they literally ever talk about it later? Maybe they had that conversation during the 6 months that Annie was in the forest.
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Jan 15, 2022 23:08
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I gotta be real with you dog this is kind of an insane and inappropriate comparison to make. You could've just said "yeah the court could force her anyway" instead of bringing up the real life example of a bunch of indigenous children being forcibly assimilated, abused, and killed, and then comparing that to a white girl in a webcomic.
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Jan 18, 2022 01:55
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Rand Brittain posted:Kat isn't white (she's Rom) but I agree that I don't quite see the parallel.
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Jan 18, 2022 02:13
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I'm still subscribed to the idea that Loup is hiding within Renard. The way he was acting and the lingering shots on him when Annie talked about him hiding feel suspicious and foreshadowy to me. It would also provide the difficult quandary of having to sacrifice Renard to kill Loup. Also, an interesting thing I just realized: Is Tony going with the Court? They seem very attached to him with how they tracked him and dragged him out of the wilderness after his Get-Wife-Back-Quest, and he seems to have been an integral part of developing Omega. If Tony refuses because he wants to take care of Annie, that would be some serious loving evidence of character growth and willingness to make sacrifices for his daughter, something we've complained has been missing from the comic thus far.
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Jan 18, 2022 02:31
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Yeah I'm very  at this. Why are they fighting? This feels really weird and abrupt and childish, like it was just introduced to cause tension in the scene.Maybe if we'd seen Juliette squinting suspiciously at her and crossing her arms for the entire scene, and had Shell say some more suspicious things, rather than basically confirming what we already know and then adding some reasonable exposition on top. But then it's abruptly like YOU MUST BE UP TO SOMETHING. Up to... what? coolusername posted:I genuinely don't get what the "You're spilling all the secrets, you're up to something!" when the only people in this room are Morris, Arthur, and two teenage girls I was trying to give this scene credit because I feel like I've been too harsh on the comic lately and at least it's doing something, it's giving us information, it's moving us closer to finding out what Omega is, but this was too much for me. It's also been a shitton of pages of talking heads expositing in a room in a way I don't think the comic has done before. If you compare it to something like Microsat 5, that was a lot of dialogue and exposition but it was also paired with a flashback, characters moving, doing things, et cetera. Just feels a bit... phoned in. I really don't know what it's doing anymore.
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Jan 19, 2022 10:49
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