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Post by Sky Schemer on Sept 3, 2015 15:57:58 GMT
Wow. The discussions keep getting so serious. tony fun time.jpg (148.44 KB) (What? Too soon?)
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Post by Sky Schemer on Sept 3, 2015 16:06:22 GMT
Young love is ridiculously complicated. Fixed that for you.
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Post by TBeholder on Sept 3, 2015 17:00:57 GMT
The thing is, now we can't be sure where it turns. I mean, right on the next page Annie may just as well vocally defend Anthony, start quietly sulking, re-merge with her second half, or just shrug, say "...and so do we, too" and move on to something practical.
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Post by Elysium on Sept 3, 2015 17:17:20 GMT
Wow. The discussions keep getting so serious. (What? Too soon?) Holy shit I can't stop laughing
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Post by hellohello on Sept 3, 2015 17:50:23 GMT
Wow. The discussions keep getting so serious. (What? Too soon?) IT'S BEAUTIFUL.
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Post by TBeholder on Sept 3, 2015 17:56:15 GMT
Aye. It's no fun being Tony.
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Post by pxc on Sept 3, 2015 18:22:32 GMT
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Post by Sky Schemer on Sept 3, 2015 18:35:06 GMT
He just seemed to be having a lot more fun in this chapter.
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Post by eyemyself on Sept 3, 2015 19:04:08 GMT
Young love is ridiculously complicated. Fixed that for you.
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dard
New Member
Posts: 43
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Post by dard on Sept 3, 2015 20:31:43 GMT
That was a strange and disappointing remark by Annie.
He has his reasons? He has only named reasons for: - returning to the Court - putting Annie one grade behind - mentally assaulting Annie in the past
That is all. He didn't give reasons for: - humiliating her in front of the class - forcing her to live in a sensory deprevation room - taking away Reynard (that one is only implied) - threatening Kat
As excuses go, I can see barely any. Especially because he didn't say a word to Annie about anything.
Compared to the chapter 51, which was thoroughly painful and unpleasant to read, this chapter has been a slight improvement. Less so because of Tony's part in it, although it was somewhat interesting. It might even have become good if Tony didn't pass out right at the moment when he could actually give the more interesting reasons. (see list above) No, it is because we now know of the Annie's separation. At the beginning I thought it was nice to have Fire Annie juxtaposed to Human Annie. Now, at this last page she was demoted again from Human Annie to Victim Annie or even Slave Mentality Annie.
I hope this comic will turn around again. Not in two or three more chapters, but in the next.
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Post by Sky Schemer on Sept 3, 2015 21:04:30 GMT
Aye. It's no fun being Tony. You know, when I put all those panels together it did occur to me that...he really did have it rough. We got it a page at a time over a couple of weeks so it spread it out, but when you run it together it hits home that a lot of that happened to him in a pretty short time. He was like, "I'm on a years-long journey of discovery" and then BAM, something has shattered his face and he's flensing his own hand. That is quite the example of the light at the end of the tunnel being an oncoming train, right? I can't help but feel bad for the guy now. I'm not ready to let him off the hook for everything that's happened, but these are all consequences of his decisions and actions. He has certainly paid a price for it, and the kicker is that it also made things worse. And he knows it. That, my friends, is a broken man. In all senses of the word.
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Post by darththulhu on Sept 3, 2015 22:54:03 GMT
Aye. It's no fun being Tony. You know, when I put all those panels together it did occur to me that...he really did have it rough ... That, my friends, is a broken man. In all senses of the word. This is why I've found the ongoing histrionics about "History's Worst Monster!" vs. "Pure and Justified!" to be almost entirely beside the point. All of it literally misses most of what is actually going on. On the one hand, "depressive man repeatedly neglects child because he is an utter wreck" gets falsely and dismissively equated (by many) with "intentional abuser" and then further gets falsely and dismissively equated (by some) with "unforgivable monster" and cue the months upon months of shrieking hysterics and fainting couches and "you'd better turn this around soon, Tom, or else". It'd all be funny if it weren't so utterly tedious. On the other hand, "depressive man repeatedly neglects child because he is an utter wreck" gets falsely and dismissively equated (by many) with "he is not responsible because he's in so much pain" and then further gets falsely and dismissively equated (by some) with "completely blameless" and cue months and months of obliviously refusing to acknowledge the obvious Fact that this man is in Zero Position to be exercising responsible guardianship over himself, let alone anyone else. It'd be funny if it weren't so horrifying. Tony is Utterly Broken. Period. That's the beginning and the end of it. He is incredibly depressed, and he has Very Good Reasons to be incredibly depressed, and he is now being used and abused by the Court to produce results and ride herd on his daughter when he Suicidally Wanted To Just Die Already. All of that means that Tony is Not Actually Functional, and all our near-pointless discussions of the abuse he is (or is not) inflicting are like discussing a small brushfire while ignoring the Gigantic Nuclear Mushroom Cloud Rising Behind It. Donald should have reached that conclusion, but didn't, and no one else is able to get out of their own petty issues enough to even try. Tony should not be in a position of responsibility. Period. Not over himself. Not over the Omega Project. And most certainly not over his daughter. And yet no one, not even the sainted Donnie Donlan, is trying to remove him from all of those responsibilities that he is in no position to shoulder. No one is trying to get him care and fill in. And so his misery, and the misery he inflicts, are all going to continue. Because he is a Suicidally Broken Depressive who is still doing work he has no sane business doing.
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Post by Daedalus on Sept 3, 2015 23:10:41 GMT
Aye. It's no fun being Tony. You know, when I put all those panels together it did occur to me that...he really did have it rough. He did have it rough. I do feel awful for him - dear god, do I feel sorry for him. Nobody deserves what happened to him (except maybe Hetty). But you know who else had it rough these last few chapters? Annie. We've kind of forgotten that Annie's an absolute wreck in all of the discussion around Tony's morality. I hope Annie and Tony reconcile, but barring that improbable circumstance, I hope Annie recognizes how unhealthy her father has been for her mental state. Mostly, I want to see Happy/Confident/Independent!Annie back Hey, look! I have the third most posts on the board now. That's...unexpected!
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Sept 3, 2015 23:32:38 GMT
Anyone noticed that Annie here seems to practice the same selective obliviousness as Anthony did? Tony is understandable now, but still dangerous and abusive, and ultimately I think Annie would probably have been better off if he had died in that cave. She would still have an unresolved issue. It's still here even if it doesn't pop on surface. Yes, Annie would still be kid with a sad childhood if he never reappeared in her life, however she would be a kid with a sad childhood without an abusive father presently making things worse and deepening her dangerous mental pattern of unconditionally loving a cruel, selfish person. He needs to do the right thing for Annie and keep himself as far away from her as possible until he learns how to act like a human being. But, but... the Abandonment was BAA-AAAD! Morton's fork. Saying that abandoning your child is bad and coming back and emotionally abusing her is even worse isn't an example of "morton's fork" it's an example of "common sense." Yes, it would be great if he could come back into her life and 1. act like an adult and 2. act like a parent. Since he has chosen 3. act like a psychopathic jailer and feel bad for himself, it would have been better for Annie in the long term if he had not come back at all, in my opinion. Not that this is a bad story, I think it's a very interesting story and I'm enjoying it, but Tony is clearly not a good guy and/or a good parent, and I still firmly see him as an antagonist and a dangerous one.
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Post by Draxiss on Sept 4, 2015 3:59:26 GMT
I mean, I would say that the part of Annie that once decided to not forgive and try to get back at Jack was mainly the flame It's kinda off topic, but since that episode keeps popping up in the conversation: Annie's "I don't really like you" to Jack wasn't to get back at him. She lied when she said that. To understand that particular scene, you need to (re)read "Annie in the forest" (in the "Extra comics" section).
This is the important scene, in vol 2: Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Annie wasn't trying to get revenge. She was trying to seduce him. By following very clumsily bad relationship advice from a tree elf. When it turned out that Jake was never really interested in the first place, she had to find some excuse quickly, because the truth was too humiliating. And this is how she managed make the guy she wanted a kiss from think she was a revenge hungry bitch. I NEVER MADE THAT CONNECTION. Seriously, thank you. You are a genius. I read "Annie and the Forest" waaaaayyy after the I'd read the scene of Jack's rejection. Also, I feel I must point out that I don't think she was actually interested in him, either. Looks more like she felt she was supposed to do so. Peer pressure, social expectations 'n all that.
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Post by Sky Schemer on Sept 4, 2015 4:13:04 GMT
And yet no one, not even the sainted Donnie Donlan, is trying to remove him from all of those responsibilities that he is in no position to shoulder. No one is trying to get him care and fill in. And so his misery, and the misery he inflicts, are all going to continue. Because he is a Suicidally Broken Depressive who is still doing work he has no sane business doing. To be fair to Donnie, he just learned all of this a few minutes ago. We don't yet know what he's going to do about it. One thing I really like about this comic, and Tom's storytelling in general, is that the adults in the story are not just set decoration. They are active participants in it and affect events. They may not be the main or even secondary characters, but they are still a part of the narrative.
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Post by hellohello on Sept 4, 2015 5:37:01 GMT
Hey, look! I have the third most posts on the board now. That's...unexpected! Tom's crown will never be taken.
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Post by The Anarch on Sept 4, 2015 6:43:34 GMT
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Post by TBeholder on Sept 4, 2015 6:51:32 GMT
Aye. It's no fun being Tony. You know, when I put all those panels together it did occur to me that...he really did have it rough. We got it a page at a time over a couple of weeks so it spread it out, but when you run it together it hits home that a lot of that happened to him in a pretty short time. Yup. Even though he brought it on himself. Reminds me the part about a sand shark in Glen Cook's "Call For The Dead". Except Anthony either didn't meet such a fish yet, or is less self-aware than Bowman. She would still have an unresolved issue. It's still here even if it doesn't pop on surface. Yes, Annie would still be kid with a sad childhood if he never reappeared in her life You don't get my drift... That isn't her big problem... though to some degree is a part of it. Nor is this state of affair persistent as such.
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Post by darththulhu on Sept 4, 2015 8:42:47 GMT
And yet no one, not even the sainted Donnie Donlan, is trying to remove him from all of those responsibilities that he is in no position to shoulder. No one is trying to get him care and fill in. And so his misery, and the misery he inflicts, are all going to continue. Because he is a Suicidally Broken Depressive who is still doing work he has no sane business doing. To be fair to Donnie, he just learned all of this a few minutes ago. We don't yet know what he's going to do about it. We already know what the prematurely-sainted Donald and Anja did for an entire decade after far worse stuff went down back in the day: Absolutely. Fricking. Nothing. Anja "was heartbroken" and Donald made sad-glasses and the nightmarish fallout of whatever it was that everyone did with Daniel and Sivo and Renard was undoubtedly very, very emo ... but nonetheless the Truth of that entire decade for both Donald and Anja (and Eglamore) was "[Surma] died, and we did nothing". Yes, it's all very sad that Surma unilaterally cut off contact with the Court and those still ensnared within it, but no one was holding a gun to Jimmy Jims nor Anja nor Donald and preventing them from ever leaving the Court to see her for over an Entire Decade, if such actually Mattered Enough to any of them to be something worth doing sometime before she died. Instead, they kept busy with their duties and their Renard-tending and their teaching and their crying on Jones's shoulder and their oh-so-very-important Work for the Program ... and never did any one of them do a blessed thing to see their "good friend" anywhen throughout the final decade of her very short life. At a certain point, Donald and Anja (and James) fully held up their end of whatever devastating breach happened in that relationship. That photo-group-of-6 Catastrophically Disintegrated, and that's not entirely on Surma nor Tony. Annie never met a single one of her parents' former-closest-friends until after her mother died and (for some unknown reason) willed Annie to go attend the institution that still had those former-closest-friends completely tied up. Donald and Anja and James didn't lift a finger regarding Surma and Tony for over a decade. They have barely lifted a finger at anytime over the past three years. Suffice it to say that I'm not holding out much hope of any of them doing a single helpful thing for those relationships anytime soon, so long as Tony continues to quietly do what the Court wants him to be doing. Why would any of them bother to seriously fight a dynamic of utter passivity and total alienation and keeping their heads down and looking the other way and pretending that "this is OK" that is this deeply established? If "the Doom That Came to Surma" wasn't enough to motivate them to do anything meaningfully active, why should "the Doom That Came to Tony" be any different?
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Sept 4, 2015 11:37:10 GMT
Wow. The discussions keep getting so serious. (What? Too soon?) Neat! Could use cross-posting to the Opportunity thread for archival purposes!
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Post by eyemyself on Sept 4, 2015 15:55:31 GMT
To be fair to Donnie, he just learned all of this a few minutes ago. We don't yet know what he's going to do about it. We already know what the prematurely-sainted Donald and Anja did for an entire decade after far worse stuff went down back in the day: Absolutely. Fricking. Nothing. Anja "was heartbroken" and Donald made sad-glasses and the nightmarish fallout of whatever it was that everyone did with Daniel and Sivo and Renard was undoubtedly very, very emo ... but nonetheless the Truth of that entire decade for both Donald and Anja (and Eglamore) was "[Surma] died, and we did nothing". Yes, it's all very sad that Surma unilaterally cut off contact with the Court and those still ensnared within it, but no one was holding a gun to Jimmy Jims nor Anja nor Donald and preventing them from ever leaving the Court to see her for over an Entire Decade, if such actually Mattered Enough to any of them to be something worth doing sometime before she died. Instead, they kept busy with their duties and their Renard-tending and their teaching and their crying on Jones's shoulder and their oh-so-very-important Work for the Program ... and never did any one of them do a blessed thing to see their "good friend" anywhen throughout the final decade of her very short life. At a certain point, Donald and Anja (and James) fully held up their end of whatever devastating breach happened in that relationship. That photo-group-of-6 Catastrophically Disintegrated, and that's not entirely on Surma nor Tony. Annie never met a single one of her parents' former-closest-friends until after her mother died and (for some unknown reason) willed Annie to go attend the institution that still had those former-closest-friends completely tied up. Donald and Anja and James didn't lift a finger regarding Surma and Tony for over a decade. They have barely lifted a finger at anytime over the past three years. Suffice it to say that I'm not holding out much hope of any of them doing a single helpful thing for those relationships anytime soon, so long as Tony continues to quietly do what the Court wants him to be doing. Why would any of them bother to seriously fight a dynamic of utter passivity and total alienation and keeping their heads down and looking the other way and pretending that "this is OK" that is this deeply established? If "the Doom That Came to Surma" wasn't enough to motivate them to do anything meaningfully active, why should "the Doom That Came to Tony" be any different? There are some really good points buried in this post. There is still so much we don't know about Surma and her transition from halycon school girls days with her best bug, Anja, main squeeze Jimmy Jims, duties as the court appointed medium falling in line with the "seduce Reynard to get him out of the forest plan" and whatever led to her hooking up with Tony and "that business with James" he alludes to when explaining to Donny why they left.
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Post by eyemyself on Sept 4, 2015 16:02:20 GMT
I'm glad you made this post so that I didn't have to. And you said it really well, so thanks. Awe shucks. T'wern't no big thing. Needed to be done.
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Post by darththulhu on Sept 5, 2015 5:55:10 GMT
To invoke the meme from three years back: TONY FUN TIME! ... Deal With It!
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