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Post by youwiththeface on Oct 6, 2017 5:09:50 GMT
I don't know I'm just not....I'm kind of not picking up on any chemistry? Me either, but at the same time the older I get the more I look at stuff like this and think that "we're both young and attractive" is a good enough reason for, like, almost anything romantic to happen. ESPECIALLY when stuck together alone for a long time. The chemistry doesn't have to be some explosive thing that's the greatest love story every told. I can at least say that I can believe that they've become less guarded around each other. More trusting. That's the thing. I can pick up enough to account for like, a one night stand or something but that's about it. I recognize that that could change (hell I want it to change) but so far I can't picture these two ever being in a long term loving relationship.
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Post by mturtle7 on Oct 6, 2017 5:50:39 GMT
Because neither is an interesting character. Surma is just a dollar-bin clone of Annie who is lacking in any meaningful character traits and has no apparent goals or ambitions or desires, because I guess the author thought well, what's the point of that when everyone knows she dies, except there's no poignancy or tragedy to her character because her death doesn't seem to matter in the context of the story anyway. Tony is a dude we know primarily as an abusive father which pre-disposes us not to care about him, which is complimented by him having the personality of a lobster. His one quasi-redeeming little side-arc was about how much he loved Surma and wanted to bring her back from the dead, but since she has no personality and her death isn't being treated as a real tragedy anyway this angle loses any force retroactively. So we have characters that are either uninteresting or uninteresting AND unlikable trapped by contrivance in a pretty and exotic locale where they have nothing to do but romp this tropical paradise together being young and attractive and this is sort of hand-waived as being enough to explain them falling in "love." It seems so weird because normally GKC is a good comic and this slow, tedious, painful arc is basically the fucking romantic plotline from Attack of the Clones, probably the storytelling nadir of the already embarrassingly terrible SW prequels. I...huh. You know, I've had so many arguments on this forum about whether Tony or Surma was a good PERSON that it never occurred to me, at all, in any of my wildest dreams, that one day I'd have to defend them as CHARACTERS (interesting ones, that is). Well, then. Here goes nothing. Okay so, first of all, I should point out that Tony is, by far, the most controversial character in the history of this comic. The arguments he's started among fans are countless. How exactly does that fit in with him being a totally bland and non-interesting character? Also, I find it mildly disturbing if your first reaction, upon seeing that someone is an abusive parent, is not to care. Most people would actually care MORE about what they do, not less, precisely because we think they are a horrible and dangerous piece of shit. And, as I was just posting about yesterday, Tony actually has one of the most complex personalities in the entire comic. I mean, even before his big confession to Donny over drinks, it was precisely his lack of expression or outward emotional signs that made him so strange and interesting, because we all knew that he HAD to have some kind of emotions and motivations, and boy did he ever. The guy has clearly shown himself capable of switching from a totally wooden and unreadable statue (I won't say robot because there are actual robot character here w/ very expressible emotions), a weeping, self-pitying wreck of a man, and a relaxed, active, hilarious dude. And none of this interests you AT ALL?! Sir, you must lead an extremely strange life to have these kind of standards. And...good god. I really want to just let Antimony hear your opinion of Surma, and then let her do my arguing for me, via her fire powers. I mean, seriously. Just imagine yourself, walking up to Annie and telling her with a straight face that the death of her mother had no impact at all on the story of her life. I direct you to this memory, this memory, and especially this little, insignificant story of her death from Annie's POV. Sir, if you don't think there was any poignancy or tragedy to the death of Annie's mother, I declare with confidence that you have no soul. I'm not quite sure why you care so much about her "goals, ambitions, and desires". I mean, what do you want from the woman? A world-saving quest for the One Ring? She's the Court Medium, constantly dealing with delicate matters of diplomacy between her enigmatic, industrial home and it's super-science and an enchanted forest ruled by a literal god, both of whom have utterly despised each other for centuries. Her love life is complex and full of both mundane strife and a magical catastrophe which ended in 2 dead friends. Considering we've only ever seen the woman in a few flashbacks, the complexity of story, emotions, and ever-changing motivations is nothing short of incredible. And again, you don't think that she's INTERESTING?! I don't really have time to talk about the similarities between Annie and her mother (it's pretty late for me, and I have homework), but I will at least mention that the readers' discovery of similar traits between them can actually be pretty interesting, though not as much as the enormous life she lived before her inevitable death. Finally, I'll just mention that they actually have a lot to do on this trip. True, there's several hours each day when they do nothing but stare at a tree, but after that they're STUDYING INSECTS! I'm sure Tony can't possibly think of anything more fascinating, although Surma does seem less than enthusiastic about it. Can't imagine why.
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Post by Per on Oct 6, 2017 6:39:58 GMT
I think it's sufficient to note that red4bestgirl doesn't post anything here but flamebait.
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Post by red4bestgirl on Oct 6, 2017 9:00:18 GMT
Surma is just a dollar-bin clone of Annie who is lacking in any meaningful character traits and has no apparent goals or ambitions or desires, because I guess the author thought well, what's the point of that when everyone knows she dies, except there's no poignancy or tragedy to her character because her death doesn't seem to matter in the context of the story anyway. I won't say I disagree with that impression of Surma. However, the majority of the experience we have of Surma is Surma through Antimony's eyes as a saintly mother-figure in stark contrast to Anthony, the withdrawn and enigmatic father-figure. It's natural for a mother to spend a lot of time with a child but the requirement for passing on the fire was for Surma and Anthony to always be together. Normally parents teach kids to soothe themselves when said parents are absent by gradually increasing times of separation and through reinforcing the idea that a parent (or other reliable adult) would appear when/if needed, and the overall notion that the parents will invariably return. The weakness caused by the fire leaving plus always being together would have made Surma less able to engage in any other activities than those she can do while spending time with Antimony. So, Antimony would have gotten the impression that her mother was only interested in things they could do together. Passing the fire on would also directly impact Surma's emotions. At the very least this would have made it easier for Surma to be patient; it may have given her a less-than-fully-human range of emotions that would allow Surma to play that saintly mother role in a way that a normal person just couldn't. It's very possible that Antimony never saw her mother lose her temper in any way, shape, or form despite spending all that time together. I think that Antimony never really knew Surma. That's why Surma may come off as a 2-dimensional character and this chapter, where Surma and Anthony are being fleshed out on purpose by Anja with the intention of changing what Antimony thinks of them, may not dovetail well with the rest of the comic until there's wider context. Surma through Renard's perspective was more interesting. I mean this is all reasonable observation, prior to this actual chapter. It's fine for a character who only exists as, "protagonist's deceased parent" to not be very fleshed out and to be heavily idealized. Guardians of the Galaxy for instance does the same bit with Peter's mom. The problem is that when we have an extended flashback sequence that's all about getting to know Surma and Tony, there needs to be something to know. It's not that this characterization doesn't dovetail with Annie's idealized memory, it's that there's just nothing interesting to learn so far. We're almost thirty pages in- and flashbacks are supposed to be, by their nature, fairly dense and information-heavy compared to the main text of a narrative- and I would be at a loss trying to give a memorable or distinctive description of Surma's personality, and utterly unable to articulate anything about her goals or interests or motivation or even her day-to-day life or social networks beyond what we already knew where she's friends with Kat's parents. This is bad and pointless backfill because we're not learning anything meaningful or new. These are like answers someone would give on the spur of a moment if they hadn't thought the background of these characters out. "What was Surma like?" "Oh, she's just. You know. She was nice. She was kind of like Annie I guess, sort of." "How did Tony get like that?" "Oh he's pretty much just always been like that." But for a planned flashback sequence, these characters need to have been planned out more, we need to have found out something interesting or surprising because so far the only thing Kat's mom is "explaining" is that they fell in love because they were too lacking in personality to do otherwise.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Oct 6, 2017 9:29:45 GMT
The problem is that when we have an extended flashback sequence that's all about getting to know Surma and Tony, there needs to be something to know. It's not that this characterization doesn't dovetail with Annie's idealized memory, it's that there's just nothing interesting to learn so far. We're almost thirty pages in- and flashbacks are supposed to be, by their nature, fairly dense and information-heavy compared to the main text of a narrative- and I would be at a loss trying to give a memorable or distinctive description of Surma's personality, and utterly unable to articulate anything about her goals or interests or motivation or even her day-to-day life or social networks beyond what we already knew where she's friends with Kat's parents. This is bad and pointless backfill because we're not learning anything meaningful or new. I'm guessing that this insect theme thing is going somewhere important (which is why I wildly speculated that insect-related thing I posted earlier) and it appears that the reason it's going to take more than thirty pages is that some character development, though not surprising or horribly exciting development, is happening. Surma's attitude towards insects is now 180° from what it was here and Anthony is interacting with Surma much differently than in the beginning of the chapter. But for a planned flashback sequence, these characters need to have been planned out more, we need to have found out something interesting or surprising because so far the only thing Kat's mom is "explaining" is that they fell in love because they were too lacking in personality to do otherwise. Meh. I figure it's common and often crucial for people to be attracted to each other for shallow reasons in the beginning for the simple fact that it takes time to demonstrate anything deeper.
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Post by red4bestgirl on Oct 6, 2017 9:56:05 GMT
Because neither is an interesting character. Surma is just a dollar-bin clone of Annie who is lacking in any meaningful character traits and has no apparent goals or ambitions or desires, because I guess the author thought well, what's the point of that when everyone knows she dies, except there's no poignancy or tragedy to her character because her death doesn't seem to matter in the context of the story anyway. Tony is a dude we know primarily as an abusive father which pre-disposes us not to care about him, which is complimented by him having the personality of a lobster. His one quasi-redeeming little side-arc was about how much he loved Surma and wanted to bring her back from the dead, but since she has no personality and her death isn't being treated as a real tragedy anyway this angle loses any force retroactively. So we have characters that are either uninteresting or uninteresting AND unlikable trapped by contrivance in a pretty and exotic locale where they have nothing to do but romp this tropical paradise together being young and attractive and this is sort of hand-waived as being enough to explain them falling in "love." It seems so weird because normally GKC is a good comic and this slow, tedious, painful arc is basically the fucking romantic plotline from Attack of the Clones, probably the storytelling nadir of the already embarrassingly terrible SW prequels. I...huh. You know, I've had so many arguments on this forum about whether Tony or Surma was a good PERSON that it never occurred to me, at all, in any of my wildest dreams, that one day I'd have to defend them as CHARACTERS (interesting ones, that is). Well, then. Here goes nothing. Okay so, first of all, I should point out that Tony is, by far, the most controversial character in the history of this comic. The arguments he's started among fans are countless. How exactly does that fit in with him being a totally bland and non-interesting character? Also, I find it mildly disturbing if your first reaction, upon seeing that someone is an abusive parent, is not to care. Most people would actually care MORE about what they do, not less, precisely because we think they are a horrible and dangerous piece of shit. And, as I was just posting about yesterday, Tony actually has one of the most complex personalities in the entire comic. I mean, even before his big confession to Donny over drinks, it was precisely his lack of expression or outward emotional signs that made him so strange and interesting, because we all knew that he HAD to have some kind of emotions and motivations, and boy did he ever. The guy has clearly shown himself capable of switching from a totally wooden and unreadable statue (I won't say robot because there are actual robot character here w/ very expressible emotions), a weeping, self-pitying wreck of a man, and a relaxed, active, hilarious dude. And none of this interests you AT ALL?! Sir, you must lead an extremely strange life to have these kind of standards. And...good god. I really want to just let Antimony hear your opinion of Surma, and then let her do my arguing for me, via her fire powers. I mean, seriously. Just imagine yourself, walking up to Annie and telling her with a straight face that the death of her mother had no impact at all on the story of her life. I direct you to this memory, this memory, and especially this little, insignificant story of her death from Annie's POV. Sir, if you don't think there was any poignancy or tragedy to the death of Annie's mother, I declare with confidence that you have no soul. I'm not quite sure why you care so much about her "goals, ambitions, and desires". I mean, what do you want from the woman? A world-saving quest for the One Ring? She's the Court Medium, constantly dealing with delicate matters of diplomacy between her enigmatic, industrial home and it's super-science and an enchanted forest ruled by a literal god, both of whom have utterly despised each other for centuries. Her love life is complex and full of both mundane strife and a magical catastrophe which ended in 2 dead friends. Considering we've only ever seen the woman in a few flashbacks, the complexity of story, emotions, and ever-changing motivations is nothing short of incredible. And again, you don't think that she's INTERESTING?! I don't really have time to talk about the similarities between Annie and her mother (it's pretty late for me, and I have homework), but I will at least mention that the readers' discovery of similar traits between them can actually be pretty interesting, though not as much as the enormous life she lived before her inevitable death. Finally, I'll just mention that they actually have a lot to do on this trip. True, there's several hours each day when they do nothing but stare at a tree, but after that they're STUDYING INSECTS! I'm sure Tony can't possibly think of anything more fascinating, although Surma does seem less than enthusiastic about it. Can't imagine why. I had a longer reply typed up but it got eaten by a computer blip. So you get the cliffnotes version. - Yes I believe that you didn't imagine you would have to defend them as characters because in the axiomatic moment you utterly fail to do that - Tony is controversial with fans because some fans want to justify child abuse. This does not make him interesting. - Implying that my lack of interest in a child abuser means I don't care about child abuse is a slimy and pathetic ad hominem and you should be ashamed of yourself for it. - A character doing things at random while expressing no emotion is not interesting. I think people confuse "unpredictable" with interesting, given the dreadful state of writing on TV and movies these days, but the two are not synonyms. What is interesting is watching characters we like and mostly understand interact with each other, the world and events around them that we also mostly understand, and then grow as a result of those interactions. That's the basic building blocks of good story. You can see it in GKC too, just not, so far, with these characters. And as a general note, yes, yes, of course this could get good later, but it's taking a very long time about it to very little point thusfar. - Holy shit I cannot believe I even have to point out that saying, "Tony can be a relaxed, active, hilarious dude" is a terrible argument here because we literally never see that happen because it happens entirely off-screen and in fact the weirdness of the after-math of that is played as a joke where Annie thinks he must have used brain-washing on Kat. - I literally laughed out loud at your argument that Annie, who both idealizes her dead mom and is also a fictional character who doesn't exist, would beat me up for saying Surma is a boring character, and that this makes her a good character. - Yes, a child losing their parents is sad (and given Tony's behavior, this basically made Annie an orphan,) but we don't need like, literally any character development of the dead parents for this to be sad. Annie was sad about her dead mom long before she knew that she got bored staring at trees; learning that doesn't add anything. If we're going to explore Surma's character it can't be just because Annie losing her mom is sad because those two things are unrelated. - I care about her ambitions, goals, and desires because giving her an actual theoretical future here creates poignancy by showcasing what could have been, which should be the entire point of this exercise. Giving Surma actual personality and character traits. Well, Tony too. - Saying that a character is interesting because interesting things happen around her is a total copout and does not make her interesting. Yes, the setting of GKC is interesting, but it was an enchanted forest/super-science mashup with warring factions and secrets and literal gods and a human medium acting between them before Surma. We've already gone through that with Annie. And yes, I know that chronologically Surma does all that stuff first, but that's not what happens in the narrative's text where we already experience all of this through Annie. It was interesting then. The fact that her mom had some connection to it was just a neat tidbit of background info that gave Annie more of a connection to the world. It doesn't make this character of YoungSurma that we're only meeting now anymore interesting because we assume that she's had similar adventures or because other people in the past implied that she was interesting. - Literally everything you say in and after the line "Her love life is complex" seems to just be making things up that are not in any way reflected in the text of the story. Like in general you seem to put a lot of stock in the promise or implication of content that the reader never actually gets to experience, and I do not. Because you shouldn't put a lot of stock in that because that's kind of dumb. What matters is the text we have, not a vague implication that somewhere in some reality that's a story of Surma's adventures that's actually fun and exciting, or a set of character motivations and personality traits that make Tony actually understandable or interesting.
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Post by red4bestgirl on Oct 6, 2017 10:02:14 GMT
The problem is that when we have an extended flashback sequence that's all about getting to know Surma and Tony, there needs to be something to know. It's not that this characterization doesn't dovetail with Annie's idealized memory, it's that there's just nothing interesting to learn so far. We're almost thirty pages in- and flashbacks are supposed to be, by their nature, fairly dense and information-heavy compared to the main text of a narrative- and I would be at a loss trying to give a memorable or distinctive description of Surma's personality, and utterly unable to articulate anything about her goals or interests or motivation or even her day-to-day life or social networks beyond what we already knew where she's friends with Kat's parents. This is bad and pointless backfill because we're not learning anything meaningful or new. I'm guessing that this insect theme thing is going somewhere important (which is why I wildly speculated that insect-related thing I posted earlier) and it appears that the reason it's going to take more than thirty pages is that some character development, though not surprising or horribly exciting development, is happening. Surma's attitude towards insects is now 180° from what it was here and Anthony is interacting with Surma much differently than in the beginning of the chapter. But for a planned flashback sequence, these characters need to have been planned out more, we need to have found out something interesting or surprising because so far the only thing Kat's mom is "explaining" is that they fell in love because they were too lacking in personality to do otherwise. Meh. I figure it's common and often crucial for people to be attracted to each other for shallow reasons in the beginning for the simple fact that it takes time to demonstrate anything deeper. As per above, sure, maybe this is going somewhere, but the pacing is glacial. Like. We are not supposed to spend that much time in flashbacks, it's (usually) bad writing. No rule is absolute but like. At the current pace it's going to be the middle of 2018 if we're supposed to close out a meaningful and interesting chapter here and get back to the present timeline, at which point I will have mostly forgotten what we were even doing. That's a problem. We've been on this storyline for more than two months already.
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ST13R
Full Member
Quiet little mouse
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Post by ST13R on Oct 6, 2017 10:07:59 GMT
I think it's sufficient to note that red4bestgirl doesn't post anything here but flamebait. You must give them credit for being so persistent though! If it weren't for those 500+word replies, you'd almost assume they don't even like the comic.
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Post by red4bestgirl on Oct 6, 2017 10:08:26 GMT
I think it's sufficient to note that red4bestgirl doesn't post anything here but flamebait.
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Post by red4bestgirl on Oct 6, 2017 10:17:35 GMT
I'm guessing that this insect theme thing is going somewhere important (which is why I wildly speculated that insect-related thing I posted earlier) and it appears that the reason it's going to take more than thirty pages is that some character development, though not surprising or horribly exciting development, is happening. Surma's attitude towards insects is now 180° from what it was here and Anthony is interacting with Surma much differently than in the beginning of the chapter. Meh. I figure it's common and often crucial for people to be attracted to each other for shallow reasons in the beginning for the simple fact that it takes time to demonstrate anything deeper. As per above, sure, maybe this is going somewhere, but the pacing is glacial. Like. We are not supposed to spend that much time in flashbacks, it's (usually) bad writing. No rule is absolute but like. At the current pace it's going to be the middle of 2018 if we're supposed to close out a meaningful and interesting chapter here and get back to the present timeline, at which point I will have mostly forgotten what we were even doing. That's a problem. We've been on this storyline for more than two months already. I should say also to this: The most recent comic page, 1893, was posted after my initial post, and is a good step towards improving the story direction relative to where it was, although from a higher story-level perspective, Surma should still have started with an actual interest of her own rather than just seemingly not being interested in anything until she eventually comes around to Tony's. But given that that shot was already missed, sure, it's a positive sign.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Oct 6, 2017 11:29:02 GMT
As per above, sure, maybe this is going somewhere, but the pacing is glacial. Like. We are not supposed to spend that much time in flashbacks, it's (usually) bad writing. No rule is absolute but like. At the current pace it's going to be the middle of 2018 if we're supposed to close out a meaningful and interesting chapter here and get back to the present timeline, at which point I will have mostly forgotten what we were even doing. That's a problem. We've been on this storyline for more than two months already. GN format is the slowest way to tell a complex story that I know of short of film and animation. I could probably boil this whole chapter so far down to a couple pages of written words (or even to a few paragraphs depending on what I do with the dialogue) but it is a webcomic. It can't update faster than the artist creates it. Perhaps if he wasn't writing this comic to be read in print a volume at a time then he could use a short and pithy style, which would keep the average reader's attention better but would be little different than many/most other comics out there. It's also worth mentioning that for full-color webcomics three updates per week is unusual, particularly so when there are so few breaks or interruptions. I'm sure there are a lot of people who get frustrated at the pace, bookmark the comic, and then binge every other month or so (after refreshing their memories on older chapters, if need be).
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Post by Rasselas on Oct 6, 2017 16:07:41 GMT
I think it's sufficient to note that red4bestgirl doesn't post anything here but flamebait. Yeah, when someone's views are that disparate from observable fact, they don't merit a serious reply.
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Post by red4bestgirl on Oct 6, 2017 16:38:11 GMT
I think it's sufficient to note that red4bestgirl doesn't post anything here but flamebait. Yeah, when someone's views are that disparate from observable fact, they don't merit a serious reply. Which is very good news for people that are unable to give one.
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Post by red4bestgirl on Oct 6, 2017 16:55:42 GMT
As per above, sure, maybe this is going somewhere, but the pacing is glacial. Like. We are not supposed to spend that much time in flashbacks, it's (usually) bad writing. No rule is absolute but like. At the current pace it's going to be the middle of 2018 if we're supposed to close out a meaningful and interesting chapter here and get back to the present timeline, at which point I will have mostly forgotten what we were even doing. That's a problem. We've been on this storyline for more than two months already. GN format is the slowest way to tell a complex story that I know of short of film and animation. I could probably boil this whole chapter so far down to a couple pages of written words (or even to a few paragraphs depending on what I do with the dialogue) but it is a webcomic. It can't update faster than the artist creates it. Perhaps if he wasn't writing this comic to be read in print a volume at a time then he could use a short and pithy style, which would keep the average reader's attention better but would be little different than many/most other comics out there. It's also worth mentioning that for full-color webcomics three updates per week is unusual, particularly so when there are so few breaks or interruptions. I'm sure there are a lot of people who get frustrated at the pace, bookmark the comic, and then binge every other month or so (after refreshing their memories on older chapters, if need be). It has to be said that frankly a lot of time has been wasted on an excess of pretty art in this chapter. Which like, is nice in so far as it legitimately does look very good, and it is truly admirable how much Tom's art has improved by leaps and bounds since the beginning of the comic. But this was honestly a poor place in the story to drag the story out so much to showcase that. From a structural level this ought to be done with characters we care about already so that the time doesn't feel as long; by putting it where we're learning about these characters as actual people for the first time (or well, second I guess in Tony's case but YoungTony is so far removed from his later circumstances that it might as well be first,) it is actively interfering with what a flashback is supposed to do and should be doing here, which is imparting information in a fairly compact form. Instead we're getting drip-fed tidbits about Surma and Tony's personalities as kids. At the danger of sounding like I'm complaining about skeleton xylophones, it also has to be said that there is a pretty big mechanical problem with this too, which is that this flashback is a translation of what Kat's mom is saying. Like this is all stuff she's telling Annie, right? Like this is another big reason flashbacks tend to be short; memory doesn't really work where people often remember all the little details. Of course flashbacks, especially in a visual media, tend to showcase some amount of detail- Archer has joked around about this a bunch of times, with characters commenting on someone's wardrobe or hairdo in a flashback sequence where the speaker clearly would not have described those details- but here it's being amped up to 11, even while none of the story is actually Kat's mom's personal memories. Why in a simple mechanical sense, would Kat's mom drone on and on and on about these days spent staring at a tree and studying some bugs? She didn't participate in these things. Even if through some magical device she later got to see all of Surma's memories of the events, she has no personal relation to these events to describe them in any way that might make them slightly meaningful or interesting. As a reminder, this was the last known spotting of our protagonist This is not the face of someone who wants to sit there for twenty minutes while you describe every single day they spent watching a goddamn tree. This leisurely and admittedly gorgeously illustrated scenic pace the flashback is taking is thematically, tonally and mechanically 'off.'
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Post by red4bestgirl on Oct 6, 2017 17:58:56 GMT
I think it's sufficient to note that red4bestgirl doesn't post anything here but flamebait. You must give them credit for being so persistent though! If it weren't for those 500+word replies, you'd almost assume they don't even like the comic. People everywhere have their differences. Some people consider it impossible to both enjoy and criticize a work. Other people consider it distasteful to imply that someone finding a child abusing character boring means that that person must not care about child abuse. We all have to set standards by which we judge the world and the people in it, I suppose.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Oct 6, 2017 18:50:42 GMT
At the danger of sounding like I'm complaining about skeleton xylophones, it also has to be said that there is a pretty big mechanical problem with this too, which is that this flashback is a translation of what Kat's mom is saying... [Antimony's face when last we saw it] is not the face of someone who wants to sit there for twenty minutes while you describe every single day they spent watching a goddamn tree. This leisurely and admittedly gorgeously illustrated scenic pace the flashback is taking is thematically, tonally and mechanically 'off.' I don't see it on a quick search of either the Q2T threads or on the Formspring archive but I'm pretty sure that the author answered this at some point somewhere and the answer was that what we are seeing is what actually happened rather than what Surma told Anja or what Anja is telling Antimony. Or in other words, and it sounds like you already know the answer and are not satisfied with it, it's because webcomic. It's just a way the media lends itself to relaying backstory when taking a break from the POV of the main character. I had a similar conversation about the video tapes (and a number of other details) in RE7 a while back. They work because video game.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2017 19:36:23 GMT
In that case, the whole comic is a "flashback" from Annie's narration. Although that has been dropped tacitly and, as I suppose we'd both agree, with good reason.
It could be that Anja's account of the story is not being told; rather than showing that, Tom changed the viewpoint between chapters back to auctorial. If not, I'd agree that it's technically a mistake, though not necessarily bad form (from whose memory was Ties narrated?).
Your point about memory is spot-on; too many details rouse suspicion that the whole is artificial -- though of course, ultimately, it is; GKC is, among other things, an elaborate alchemical treatise that, unlike single paintings, incorporates time as a device of storytelling (beyond the necessary shackles of the reader).
As an aside, with this and terms like "present timeline", I have to wonder how much you know about mechanics, in the actual meaning of this word... your style often invites that. You use words where they add nothing, which, along with your self-indulgent exasperation and "world-weary" TV-Tropical diction such as "flashback" (I'm waiting for you to mention "Chekhov's gun", which is a principle the doctor himself did not adhere to, neither when this refusal of writing-by-numbers changed his art for the better, e.g. "The Lady with the Dog", nor for the worse, e.g. "The Seagull"), makes me think, that while obviously capable of reasoned arguments, you're not the most powerful arbiter of taste (apart from your invested opinions on what I think is plasticine Americana) because you claim more knowledge than you have.
You might call this "ad-hominem" once again (I should point out that your invocation of "child abuser defenders" as the unseen majority on the forum is no different); you'd be right and yet miss the point.
Sometimes in questions of "general ideas" about art, there's common ground that can be reasoned about; most often there isn't because such arguments is about first principles, rather than the details of a concrete work. I've come to distrust (more consciously) all philosopher-kings who wish to select humanity by private beliefs, on any more than a strictly-private scale; I still have to learn better to decide who is one, though.
Because she is a scientist.
Surma's naivity and shallow decision-making are perhaps being hinted at (though not judged as casually and totally as you would) by the author, consciously, in that she's confusing parasites with parenthood (which, along with any motif of radial emissions that may or may not have been featured in the comic already, would be sufficient reason to include this detail), or that the Red Cross that would reappear in Good Hope and a fire extinguisher appear in the cabin (this wouldn't work if the comic always followed time's arrow). Or by Anja's comment about "it was much worse than that; they fell in love", which suggests that the dissonance between the simple expectations and vigour of Surma/Tony and Anja's (or perhaps the reader's) view is intended by Tom (amusingly mirrored in how "star-crossed lovers", despite the face value, does not mean "destined for each other" at all). I find this tension between characters and author interesting (I like bugs and trees, too). You might not.
Arguable. I think I'd listen to anyone who knew someone close to me that I was missing, even if they could not offer more than quotidian tales.
I thought that Annie's "mind-control" suspicion was dreadful writing, by the way.
I do get the feeling that you like the comic, but I don't get the feeling you want to talk to anyone here. Might well be wrong.
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Post by red4bestgirl on Oct 6, 2017 20:10:08 GMT
In that case, the whole comic is a "flashback" from Annie's narration. Although that has been dropped tacitly and, as I suppose we'd both agree, with good reason. It could be that Anja's account of the story is not being told; rather than showing that, Tom changed the viewpoint between chapters back to auctorial. If not, I'd agree that it's technically a mistake, though not necessarily bad form (from whose memory was Ties narrated?). Your point about memory is spot-on; too many details rouse suspicion that the whole is artificial -- though of course, ultimately, it is; GKC is, among other things, an elaborate alchemical treatise that, unlike single paintings, incorporates time as a device of storytelling (beyond the necessary shackles of the reader). As an aside, with this and terms like "present timeline", I have to wonder how much you know about mechanics, in the actual meaning of this word... your style often invites that. You use words where they add nothing, which, along with your self-indulgent exasperation and "world-weary" TV-Tropical diction such as "flashback" (I'm waiting for you to mention "Chekhov's gun", which is a principle the doctor himself did not adhere to, neither when this refusal of writing-by-numbers changed his art for the better, e.g. "The Lady with the Dog", nor for the worse, e.g. "The Seagull"), makes me think, that while obviously capable of reasoned arguments, you're not the most powerful arbiter of taste (apart from your invested opinions on what I think is plasticine Americana) because you claim more knowledge than you have. You might call this "ad-hominem" once again (I should point out that your invocation of "child abuser defenders" as the unseen majority on the forum is no different); you'd be right and yet miss the point. Sometimes in questions of "general ideas" about art, there's common ground that can be reasoned about; most often there isn't because such arguments is about first principles, rather than the details of a concrete work. I've come to distrust (more consciously) all philosopher-kings who wish to select humanity by private beliefs, on any more than a strictly-private scale; I still have to learn better to decide who is one, though. Because she is a scientist. Surma's naivity and shallow decision-making are perhaps being hinted at (though not judged as casually and totally as you would) by the author, consciously, in that she's confusing parasites with parenthood (which, along with any motif of radial emissions that may or may not have been featured in the comic already, would be sufficient reason to include this detail), or that the Red Cross that would reappear in Good Hope and a fire extinguisher appear in the cabin (this wouldn't work if the comic always followed time's arrow). Or by Anja's comment about "it was much worse than that; they fell in love", which suggests that the dissonance between the simple expectations and vigour of Surma/Tony and Anja's (or perhaps the reader's) view is intended by Tom (amusingly mirrored in how "star-crossed lovers", despite the face value, does not mean "destined for each other" at all). I find this tension between characters and author interesting (I like bugs and trees, too). You might not. Arguable. I think I'd listen to anyone who knew someone close to me that I was missing, even if they could not offer more than quotidian tales. I thought that Annie's "mind-control" suspicion was dreadful writing, by the way. I do get the feeling that you like the comic, but I don't get the feeling you want to talk to anyone here. Might well be wrong. On the contrary, I love talking to people about a work. I think my ideal ratio is spending like at least four hour discussing a work of narrative fiction for every hour spent actually reading/watching/whatevering it. Analyzing and discussing the structure of a story, its characters, setting, pacing, aesthetics, design, author choices, author voices etc. etc. etc. are all really interesting to me. What I intensely despise is when people treat criticism of a work as a personal attack. Or, as last time we had this conversation, become so vicariously invested in a character that they take any criticism of that character, even in-text criticism, as an attack on themselves. But you seem pretty split on whether you want to have an actual, civil conversation about this or not, so I'll await clarification before responding further. Let me know if you want to actually discuss the comic, or if I should be likewise responding with ad hominem attacks and random complaints about trope terminology and pointing out grammar mistakes and so on.
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Post by red4bestgirl on Oct 6, 2017 20:11:32 GMT
At the danger of sounding like I'm complaining about skeleton xylophones, it also has to be said that there is a pretty big mechanical problem with this too, which is that this flashback is a translation of what Kat's mom is saying... [Antimony's face when last we saw it] is not the face of someone who wants to sit there for twenty minutes while you describe every single day they spent watching a goddamn tree. This leisurely and admittedly gorgeously illustrated scenic pace the flashback is taking is thematically, tonally and mechanically 'off.' I don't see it on a quick search of either the Q2T threads or on the Formspring archive but I'm pretty sure that the author answered this at some point somewhere and the answer was that what we are seeing is what actually happened rather than what Surma told Anja or what Anja is telling Antimony. Or in other words, and it sounds like you already know the answer and are not satisfied with it, it's because webcomic. It's just a way the media lends itself to relaying backstory when taking a break from the POV of the main character. I had a similar conversation about the video tapes (and a number of other details) in RE7 a while back. They work because video game. I'm not a fan of this conceit but if it's intentional there's not a lot else to say about that then. Thanks though, I had not seen that answer.
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Post by aline on Oct 6, 2017 21:44:53 GMT
Well, for what it's worth I mostly agree with red4bestgirl. So far I'm very bored with this chapter. Those 30 pages could have been easily halved without anything of note getting lost in the process.
I mean we know what is happening here. Alone in exotic location, they bond, they fall in love, the end. You don't need 30 pages to tell it, unless the way it happened is somehow extraordinary, or you have something of note to reveal about the characters. So far no such thing has happened.
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Post by davidm on Oct 6, 2017 22:09:31 GMT
... I mean we know what is happening here. Alone in exotic location, they bond, they fall in love, the end... Obviously you don't know what is happening. First bug infects insect and multiplies and directs insect to land on new host (woman). Bug infects woman, crawls into her brain and mind controls her to help other bugs infect other people. Man gets infected next. Then bugs cause woman and man to "fall in love" to keep larger colony of bugs together so more genetic variation when bugs mate. This part is all so obvious from how woman is so obsessed with survival of tiny bugs, when she didn't care about bugs in previous pages, but I guess you miss the obvious. The court knew about these bugs, and sent these humans to get infected and bring bugs home so court could study and weaponise them. Yes its boring because it has been done before in Aliens movie and bunch of others. "You can't prove that it isn't true" - Plan 9 from outer space.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2017 22:17:21 GMT
I neither remember this, nor that you'd ever have replied to me directly. I'm confused that I should have suffered any attack on myself by proxy of Gunnerkrigg Court character, but I hear this Boxbot is quite terrible, as is this Anthony. Or am I supposed to join the child-abuse defenders you enjoy invoking? I can't bother to recall.
Yes, and I think the same of you, which I suppose you're smart enough to have noticed in spotting this. I want to see how serious you are; had you dropped all reasoning at the first provocation, I'd have known you weren't.
Nonetheless, I meant everything I said. To me, you appear competent, but overly aggressive and certainly not, from how I see it, the authority that you claim for yourself -- at least, not yet. This doesn't muddle your arguments as such; but if you expected me to focus on the argument alone, I assume you wouldn't write like you do in the first place; you're deliberately calling attention to your style, and are thus at risk of anyone not liking it, just as you're up for the reward.
If I didn't think you were interesting to talk to, purely by the argument you offer, I wouldn't try it. Nor would I get annoyed with you, although likely not for the reasons you imagine, should they resemble what you wrote above.
Neither was the complaint "random" (though it would be funny, possibly to you too, if I had written a Markov chain generator to assemble my posts here and nobody besides you had noticed this), nor did I point out grammar mistakes; but you should respond however you like, that inclusive -- due to your declared intent, though, I should warn you that, as a German, I draw a devious double pleasure from it.
Incidentally, anyone who can explain why the term "Markov generator" in the mathematical sense would be appropriate to such a program or not is undeniably smarter than I am, while anyone who can explain why it has to be a Markov process specifically has understood the joke. I think I've made it once already, even, which should nudge it closer to charitable amusement (reminder that I man am regal, a German am I -- not my own, of course)
Edit: To be clear, I don't believe that there is anything such as a universal arbiter of taste. Whenever I write about anything, the tacit disclaimer is that it's obviously only what I believe or perceive. My attack on you becomes void by default if we agree. If you claim the position of knowing the universally best style in art (which I might well have misinterpreted you as taking), just be prepared to have your style challenged universally. You might be right but such a claim must be proven!
(Kill Six Billion Demons.)
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Post by faiiry on Oct 6, 2017 22:49:43 GMT
For some reason I can't manage to quote properly? But I take issue with the person that said Surma is a dollar-bin clone of Annie. Hey now, I don't necessarily disagree with your assessment of Tony, and I do agree that Surma...uh...kind of sucks, but to say that Surma is a clone of Annie? The two are as unalike as fire and ice. If anything, Surma is a dollar-bin clone of Red, or something. To be really honest, this chapter isn't doing a whole lot for me, either. However, I would hesitate to say that it's as bad as the Star Wars prequels. I think that's really dramatic. And let's not forget that we get our chapters 1 page at a time. We don't have the benefit of hindsight or posterity. We're judging what Tom is doing, and his writing, without knowing what his intentions are yet. The chapter is kind of slow-paced, and definitely a departure from the crazy epic story we were probably all expecting, but when has GKC gone with what we expected? Almost never.
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yinglung
Full Member
It's only a tatter of mime.
Posts: 190
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Post by yinglung on Oct 7, 2017 0:27:06 GMT
For some reason I can't manage to quote properly? But I take issue with the person that said Surma is a dollar-bin clone of Annie. Hey now, I don't necessarily disagree with your assessment of Tony, and I do agree that Surma...uh...kind of sucks, but to say that Surma is a clone of Annie? The two are as unalike as fire and ice. If anything, Surma is a dollar-bin clone of Red, or something. To be really honest, this chapter isn't doing a whole lot for me, either. However, I would hesitate to say that it's as bad as the Star Wars prequels. I think that's really dramatic. And let's not forget that we get our chapters 1 page at a time. We don't have the benefit of hindsight or posterity. We're judging what Tom is doing, and his writing, without knowing what his intentions are yet. The chapter is kind of slow-paced, and definitely a departure from the crazy epic story we were probably all expecting, but when has GKC gone with what we expected? Almost never. I'd like to add that we are seeing this comic three pages a week. Upon reading this section as an archive, we may find that it is still slow, but not nearly as agonizing as it feels right now. Rather, the reader is made to slow down and appreciate the contrast to the artificial edges and pace of the court, or get submersed the atmosphere of an old memory slowly recalled.
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Post by darlos9d on Oct 7, 2017 15:09:14 GMT
For some reason I can't manage to quote properly? But I take issue with the person that said Surma is a dollar-bin clone of Annie. Hey now, I don't necessarily disagree with your assessment of Tony, and I do agree that Surma...uh...kind of sucks, but to say that Surma is a clone of Annie? The two are as unalike as fire and ice. If anything, Surma is a dollar-bin clone of Red, or something. To be really honest, this chapter isn't doing a whole lot for me, either. However, I would hesitate to say that it's as bad as the Star Wars prequels. I think that's really dramatic. And let's not forget that we get our chapters 1 page at a time. We don't have the benefit of hindsight or posterity. We're judging what Tom is doing, and his writing, without knowing what his intentions are yet. The chapter is kind of slow-paced, and definitely a departure from the crazy epic story we were probably all expecting, but when has GKC gone with what we expected? Almost never. I'd like to add that we are seeing this comic three pages a week. Upon reading this section as an archive, we may find that it is still slow, but not nearly as agonizing as it feels right now. Rather, the reader is made to slow down and appreciate the contrast to the artificial edges and pace of the court, or get submersed the atmosphere of an old memory slowly recalled. Yeah it's the old serial vs archival "problem" that was oft brought up in the Homestuck fandom, and its author. There's a reason I long ago decided to wait until a story is over before I fully judge it. You can't actually know where a thing is going until it goes there.
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Post by Rasselas on Oct 8, 2017 21:58:32 GMT
Yeah, when someone's views are that disparate from observable fact, they don't merit a serious reply. Which is very good news for people that are unable to give one. Must be nice to live in your fantasy where you're the misunderstood genius. Good luck with that.
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