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Post by speedwell on Mar 23, 2015 16:24:55 GMT
I know other people have mentioned this, but I'm throwing my money in on the side of "Mr. Control Freak wants to personally tutor his daughter". Call it a feeling, but I can think of some reasons for it, too... just to speculate/brainstorm further: Her performance reflects on him and he expects her and wants her to proceed faster. He wants to use her connection to the Forest for some special project. He was asked to tutor her one-on-one so she can continue to fulfill her mediumship duties. He wants to isolate her from the rest of the students so that she becomes increasingly dependent on him. He wants to suddenly play involved Father again. She was "homeschooled" when she lived in the hospital. He needs a lab assistant because of his hand and due to the nature of his special obsession, Antimony makes the natural choice.
Also, I was reviewing the panels in Divine in which Zimmy hits him. Someone has doubtless pointed this out a hundred times before as well, but Zimmy's hair gets like Antimony's in the moment that she strikes. Perhaps Anthony is under the impression that it was actually Antimony who did it somehow.
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Post by antiyonder on Mar 23, 2015 16:30:53 GMT
zimmyzims: I'd argue it's less about wanting a character to be a simple 2D bad guy and more about the uneasiness of a story justifying emotional abuse due to good intentions.
And incidentally, even if sometimes kids don't always know best, are you honestly of the opinion that parents are never wrong unless abuse is part of the equation?
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Post by nero on Mar 23, 2015 16:47:15 GMT
Just got to wait a little bit more. I'm guessing Anthony will either say something cold or shocking to Annie.
Just hand her the book, and make a remark about following all the rules and dismiss her quickly.
Or he could tell her that she's being taken out of the class/Court.
Whatever happens, Kat you better be looking through the door window the entire time.
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Post by ahriman on Mar 23, 2015 16:52:39 GMT
It may only be wishful thinking, but perhaps her dad didn't want the rest of the class to think he was exercising favoritism over Annie because they're kin? I'm hoping for a sudden tearful embrace. Perhaps Anthony was prohibited from seeking out Annie personally by his duties to the court. Tom likes to throw in characterization red herrings - things always turn out more complicated than they seem, with no clear villains or heroes. I'm sorry if this has been discussed before, don't quite have enough time to read the full discussion for last week's comics! |
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Post by zimmyzims on Mar 23, 2015 17:06:12 GMT
zimmyzims: I'd argue it's less about wanting a character to be a simple 2D bad guy and more about the uneasiness of a story justifying emotional abuse due to good intentions. And incidentally, even if sometimes kids don't always know best, are you honestly of the opinion that parents are never wrong unless abuse is part of the equation?I've never said this or anything to the effect. I have said that the parents who are unable to allow their children to be disappointed, sad, suffering etc. when it is for their (= the kids) own good are horrible parents. I have never said that the parents would always or even most of the time know what is best for their kids. But the kids do not know it. And as for the first part, I wish that the story is about something else than Anthony abusing Annie. There is some unusual reason, not applying to real life situations because in real life people are not half fire elementals or crazy scientists fighting against gods and their army of monsters, justifying why he is treating Annie so harshly, other than the fact that he "is a quiet man" or more precisely, is the "stoic side" of Annie* and treats people, himself included, strictly. *Annie has since the beginning been - Tom affirmed this in some interview - a kind of dual character of stoic emotionlessness and fiery bursts of emotion, of which we have seen the former more in the beginning and the latter more recently, and this was represented as her being born out of opposite characters, one overly emotional, a bit irrational half-fire elemental, and another very stoic, emotionally closed rationalist scientist. There's a morality of detachment and independence in stoicism that might actually speak to Annie, even if Coyote's lured her fire elemental side to dominate her recently (not blaming her for this, however, seen the course of the events). |
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Post by antiyonder on Mar 23, 2015 17:21:21 GMT
zimmyzims: I'd argue it's less about wanting a character to be a simple 2D bad guy and more about the uneasiness of a story justifying emotional abuse due to good intentions. And incidentally, even if sometimes kids don't always know best, are you honestly of the opinion that parents are never wrong unless abuse is part of the equation?I've never said this or anything to the effect. I have said that the parents who are unable to allow their children to be disappointed, sad, suffering etc. when it is for their (= the kids) own good are horrible parents. That I can agree with, though I was think more along the lines of well to word it this way. What's the most minimum kind of behavior that he could display for you to deem him as abusive? And if you would kindly answer this other question as well, I'm pretty much done*, but if you don't believe him to be blaming Annie for Surma's death, what's the point behind her saying "He still loves you."? *It's the last time I'm asking either way, but still... |
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Post by kagredon on Mar 23, 2015 17:24:47 GMT
Calling it now: he was testing her temper and is going to congratulate her on keeping her cool on the next page. (I'm surprised he made it to the end of class without being torn apart.) <a href="http://gunnerkrigg.com/?p=367">Remember this?</a> Yeah, I'm thinking <s>Dad</s> Sir made a habit of pushing Annie's buttons. Maybe she'll tell him to quit it? |
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Post by warrl on Mar 23, 2015 17:26:05 GMT
Some observations that have little to do with the A-hole standing in front of the class. - Annie and Kat are sharing Kat's book in panel 1. Defiance starts in small ways! - Paz has not appeared in this class. We've seen a lot of the other students, many in the background drawn in low resolution, but not Paz. Her hair is fairly distinct even in low resolution, so this seems to be an intentional omission. I assumed Paz would lean towards Biology, but she doesn't appear to be here. Paz is probably a least a half-year ahead of others her age in biology. |
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Post by snipertom on Mar 23, 2015 17:44:53 GMT
hmmm so a perspective: basically I had a father who was an abusive dick in more ways than one. many years later I have some sort of likely 'explanation' for his behaviours. I mean, it's a good set of 'explanations' but it certainly didn't fix our relationship, nor did it give me closure or peace of mind. Those things came via both work and also finding my own peace via, well, a lot of therapy. on top of it all, my father was probably *still* a better father than Anthony is. so, while we as readers might get some sort of satisfying explanation, Annie actually probably doesn't get any satisfaction, and will probably just get a bunch of emotional scars and demons to battle - which I think she probably will deal with admirably. In addition... I do find it interesting how we as readers are also being led down the emotional rollercoaster of "this time it will be different". This is always your hope in an abusive relationship. And your hopes are dashed over and over. But you get a few scraps here and there from the abuser to 'keep you going' I mean it's very good and very clever writing  |
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Post by zimmyzims on Mar 23, 2015 18:15:23 GMT
I've never said this or anything to the effect. I have said that the parents who are unable to allow their children to be disappointed, sad, suffering etc. when it is for their (= the kids) own good are horrible parents. That I can agree with, though I was think more along the lines of well to word it this way. What's the most minimum kind of behavior that he could display for you to deem him as abusive? And if you would kindly answer this other question as well, I'm pretty much done*, but if you don't believe him to be blaming Annie for Surma's death, what's the point behind her saying "He still loves you."? *It's the last time I'm asking either way, but still... He did know that Surma would die after giving birth, because of passing her spirit to Annie, and being unable to save Surma, it was clear that the more Antimony grew the less his loved wife lived. Of course, that is emotionally difficult to grasp especially when you're fighting against time and that time depends on the child's growth, but it would be somewhat stupid to blame the child for it (the child is not faulty to her own birth), and although many parents do blame their children for things that have resulted simply from the child's birth, why should we read Anthony's sorrow as that simple and, as said, stupid? Why not just that he already had hard time showing his emotions, and even more so showing the positive emotions when crushed under his negative ones, maybe regretting they had a child when he was unable to save his wife - there is a chance that it was not his choice to have a child, by the way. "He still loves you very much, although he is unable to show it as he suffers the more the more you grow, as I will die because of that." Why not that instead of "He still loves you very much although he blames you for my death"? Or why not him suffering of a crushing sadness in front of his inability to save his loved ones, maybe Annie too? Maybe to losing wife in birth was added the fear that he cannot grow the child up alone (which he perhaps proved to be true, although he must have take ncare of her alone, as a parent, for years when Surma was sick and unable to do anything)? Whatever the reason, it would certainly seem logical to love the child all the more because that is all he has left, and because his wife lives in that child. But do we really know he does not? I still point at the fact that we do not know what he has been doing, but know that he has been thinking Annie (we know this from Micro Sat 5 and Divine). Now, what would request more of an explanation: that the bone laser coup was for Antimony, or that it was against Antimony? Sure, it didn't seem to do good to her (it also clearly failed), but what would have been the reason behind him attacking Antimony? Is there any sensible explanation for that? I would request one very big time, and "you killed my wife!" would not quite do. Not for me, at least. I do not think you can single out a behaviour that is abusive as such without the context. To understand an act, you have to see what all it is linked with. It makes no sense to talk of abusive behaviour abstractly, and thus it is impossible to answer that question exactly: it may be something slighter, something I would not have foreseen, or something I say now would not be it, because of being acted in a non-abusive situation. But let's say, as I already did, if it turns out that what he has already done was aimed at Annie in particular for whatever subjective and unjustifiable reason, i.e. a one that makes the act a one that is against the particular person, then that already is a form of abuse. It all depends on what is happening in whole. By the way, use either the quote function or the User Link function to make it easier to notice that you respond to another user. |
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Post by zimmyzims on Mar 23, 2015 18:25:30 GMT
I know other people have mentioned this, but I'm throwing my money in on the side of "Mr. Control Freak wants to personally tutor his daughter". Call it a feeling, but I can think of some reasons for it, too... just to speculate/brainstorm further: Her performance reflects on him and he expects her and wants her to proceed faster. He wants to use her connection to the Forest for some special project. He was asked to tutor her one-on-one so she can continue to fulfill her mediumship duties. He wants to isolate her from the rest of the students so that she becomes increasingly dependent on him. He wants to suddenly play involved Father again. She was "homeschooled" when she lived in the hospital. He needs a lab assistant because of his hand and due to the nature of his special obsession, Antimony makes the natural choice. This I think is confirmed to be true, so he has already taught Annie personally. However, why not "he wants to be an involved father again", or even "he is an involved father and wants to get concretely back into his daughter's life now that it is possible?" as we still don't know why he was away. These as opposed to the pejorative "play an involved father". By the way, even if Anthony expected a lot from Annie, the truth is she's probably in a need of tutoring not because she's more advanced than others but because she's behind them a lot, having for years skipped classes, slept during them when not skipping, and copied her best friend's homework instead of doing any of her own. Also, I was reviewing the panels in Divine in which Zimmy hits him. Someone has doubtless pointed this out a hundred times before as well, but Zimmy's hair gets like Antimony's in the moment that she strikes. Perhaps Anthony is under the impression that it was actually Antimony who did it somehow. She indeed resembles Annie there, but I've always taken that as depicting how she "dives through" Annie etherically to hit Anthony (etherically). Anyway, maybe he does indeed think it was Annie who hit him. Maybe he doesn't know of Zimmy at all. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 23, 2015 19:26:00 GMT
It's the first day. The students haven't had a chance to really disappoint him yet; wait until they have to demonstrate they've done something with the material other than listen to it quietly.  I'm sure he'd be excited if they did something inventive with the material, showing some actual interest. Kat will be his favourite student. Edit. And Kat will be absolutely torn between her anger for Anthony hurting Annie, and her genuine excitement with the stuff that Anthony teaches. Going to be his favourite and least favourite teacher the same time. Maybe not. Part of teaching is leading and that requires some social skills. One clear mark you've got a really crappy boss is when he/she accepts any good fortune or outstanding performance from a subordinate as normal or his/her due because of his/her station. This is usually followed by punishing subordinates for mistakes the boss makes or otherwise passing off responsibility on those lower down the totem pole. Take this into teaching: One variant of crappy teacher is one who expects students to share his/her passion for a given subject and considers any students who don't like whatever subject that they teach to be ignorant and/or stupid. I've had some of those. Although, I could see Mr. Carver preferring Donlan's studious ways over his own daughter and making one or more unflattering-to-Antimony comparisons in public, particularly if Antimony gets caught cheating. |
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Post by Daedalus on Mar 23, 2015 19:29:53 GMT
<a href="http://gunnerkrigg.com/?p=367">Remember this?</a> Yeah, I'm thinking <s>Dad</s> Sir made a habit of pushing Annie's buttons. Maybe she'll tell him to quit it? The Bbcode that this board employs uses [ rather than < |
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Post by warrl on Mar 23, 2015 19:36:21 GMT
However, why not "he wants to be an involved father again", or even "he is an involved father and wants to get concretely back into his daughter's life now that it is possible?" as we still don't know why he was away. These as opposed to the pejorative "play an involved father". If he had any interest in being an involved father, combined with intelligence at least equal to the average duck, he would have contacted Antimony significantly BEFORE class. The Bbcode that this board employs uses [ rather than < There are other differences from HTML too. Unfortunately, bbcode is not totally consistent among different programs (mostly in terms of what capabilities aren't implemented, which can be affected by what plugins the site administrator has installed), so a guide to it isn't necessarily completely accurate for any board other than the one it's attached to. Here's the guide for this particular site. |
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Post by zimmyzims on Mar 23, 2015 19:36:47 GMT
I'm sure he'd be excited if they did something inventive with the material, showing some actual interest. Kat will be his favourite student. Edit. And Kat will be absolutely torn between her anger for Anthony hurting Annie, and her genuine excitement with the stuff that Anthony teaches. Going to be his favourite and least favourite teacher the same time. Maybe not. Part of teaching is leading and that requires some social skills. One clear mark you've got a really crappy boss is when he/she accepts any good fortune or outstanding performance from a subordinate as normal or his/her due because of his/her station. This is usually followed by punishing subordinates for mistakes the boss makes or otherwise passing off responsibility on those lower down the totem pole. Take this into teaching: One variant of crappy teacher is one who expects students to share his/her passion for a given subject and considers any students who don't like whatever subject that they teach to be ignorant and/or stupid. I've had some of those. Although, I could see Mr. Carver preferring Donlan's studious ways over his own daughter and making one or more unflattering-to-Antimony comparisons in public, particularly if Antimony gets caught cheating. Um, I don't quite understand your analogy to bad boss or whatever it has to do with this situation. What I suggested was that Anthony would find Kat's work ethic and interest in science commendable. And Antimony's lazy-ass disinterest condemnable. |
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Post by ahriman on Mar 23, 2015 19:46:31 GMT
zimmyzims: Yes, I'm unable to see Anthony's actions in an abusive light simply because they hurt Annie, things are not usually so simple. Fathers can love their children and still cause them harm, not out of malice but out of weakness. People (and especially men) may use anger to protect themselves from grief and uncertainty. Annie takes very strongly after her mother in appearance and it must hurt him terribly to see her. Anthony could easily be blaming himself for Surma's death - he may have purposely kept Annie away because he does not believe he can protect her. If that is his logic, then distancing himself from Annie is the best way to keep her safe, and their re-uniting is the last thing he wanted.
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Post by Kitty Hamilton on Mar 23, 2015 20:00:36 GMT
zimmyzims: Yes, I'm unable to see Anthony's actions in an abusive light simply because they hurt Annie, things are not usually so simple. Fathers can love their children and still cause them harm, not out of malice but out of weakness. People (and especially men) may use anger to protect themselves from grief and uncertainty. Annie takes very strongly after her mother in appearance and it must hurt him terribly to see her. Anthony could easily be blaming himself for Surma's death - he may have purposely kept Annie away because he does not believe he can protect her. If that is his logic, then distancing himself from Annie is the best way to keep her safe, and their re-uniting is the last thing he wanted. Having an angsty reason for behaving in an abusively doesn't mean Anthony isn't behaving abusively, though. Many if not most abusive parents love their children. |
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Post by psybershadow on Mar 23, 2015 20:04:17 GMT
Does anyone else find it weird that a place built on technology would still use black boards?
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Shire
Junior Member
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Post by Shire on Mar 23, 2015 20:57:59 GMT
Annie is... smiling?
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Post by ahriman on Mar 23, 2015 21:04:37 GMT
kitty Hamilton: Well, if you define "abusive" as any deleterious interaction then I would agree. All child-parent relationships are an inherently traumatic process of re-shaping a pure individuality into something more suitable to a functioning existence within a less-than-ideal world... The very first thing many children learn is how to "lie" to garner the attention they need from their parents, as in the case of crocodile tears. Purity is sacrificed for survival. I'm not saying I like it, but it's sometimes necessary.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 23, 2015 21:12:25 GMT
Maybe not. Part of teaching is leading and that requires some social skills. One clear mark you've got a really crappy boss is when he/she accepts any good fortune or outstanding performance from a subordinate as normal or his/her due because of his/her station. This is usually followed by punishing subordinates for mistakes the boss makes or otherwise passing off responsibility on those lower down the totem pole. Take this into teaching: One variant of crappy teacher is one who expects students to share his/her passion for a given subject and considers any students who don't like whatever subject that they teach to be ignorant and/or stupid. I've had some of those. Although, I could see Mr. Carver preferring Donlan's studious ways over his own daughter and making one or more unflattering-to-Antimony comparisons in public, particularly if Antimony gets caught cheating. Um, I don't quite understand your analogy to bad boss or whatever it has to do with this situation. What I suggested was that Anthony would find Kat's work ethic and interest in science commendable. And Antimony's lazy-ass disinterest condemnable. What I'm saying is, suppose Anthony Carver finds Kat Donlan's studious nature to be correct but not worthy of particular praise (beyond good grades) because that is what a student *should* be doing in his mind, while he finds Antimony's lack thereof to be worthy of condemnation? [So, while he may draw comparisons favorable to Kat Donlan while belittling his daughter in public, this shouldn't be seen as praise and he wouldn't praise Kat otherwise.] Authority relationships can (dys)function the same in school as in the real world for the same reasons! I've got several fun stories on such teachers but possibly the most glaring was in my senior year of high school. I was taking an upper English elective I didn't need just to fill a slot; the instructor was new to the institution but very opinionated and passionate. Her first day of class involved a sneering declaration that our entire generation was woefully ignorant on crucially-important aspects of culture and that she would now prove same with a pop quiz. She read about 30min of questions on second-tier historical facts (like, "Who was Henry VIII's second wife?") and genuine trivia from Brit/Amer literature, and then she went around the class in desk-order for the answers. While I didn't ace the test I came really close and got every one right that I was called on for. Normally this would have earned me a position as a "C" student in her class with a range of B- to C- as she proceeded to grade based on her personal opinions of students as much as anything that we wrote (not out of condemnation but out of an attempt to drive me to higher levels of performance, as happened to some other peeps in that room). But as she was making her closing remarks on the poor performance of the class and how we now knew who was ignorant, I turned to a buddy in the next row with a pointed stare and agreed: "YES WE NOW ALL KNOW WHO IS IGNORANT."  He naturally replied, "You know where you can bite me!" but it did not occur to him at the time this was an indirect attack on the teacher, complimentary to my witty mockery of the teacher even though contradictory to what I'd actually said. The rest of the semester she simply wrote "D" or "F" on whatever I turned in for that class without reading it. My friend needed the class and struggled his way to win her approval, busting his @ss and worrying himself into ulcer-territory to get a "C-". I didn't need this class and didn't particularly care about it trashing my GPA, so I continued to instigate in a way that this forum might find odd... I would bring in classical works like collected Aristotle and read them silently in class, ignoring her lecture and the texts that she'd chosen to cure us of our supposed-ignorance. Being one of those insufferable the-world-didn't-begin-until-1800s-Germany** sorts this drove her right up the wall; it was an implied critique of her deeply-held convictions as well as her choice of materials for the class and her lectures. But she couldn't DO anything other than flunk me as long as I continued to hand in assignments (half-assed at best but on time) and I didn't let her provoke me into anything that could be called a disciplinary breach. As graduation time neared one of my other teachers told me that she was lobbying them for one other to flunk me so that I couldn't graduate but was so far finding no takers; in retaliation I began arriving to class early and writing populist or classical quotations (like from a daily calendar) that I knew would agitate her, then disappearing and reentering with the other students for plausible deniability (ala English class ninja). I did not do this every day, so as not to get caught, but randomly once or twice per week. And it worked like a charm, she overplayed her hand trying to browbeat the other teachers into flunking me and people started to lose track of who was the kid and who was the teacher in this situation. It probably would have happened anyway without my minimal assistance but I'm given to understand she was let go after her initial contract. **Sounds contradictory with what I said about the question about British history from her initial quiz? Not really, it was important for students to memorize the names/dates that led up to the birth of her pet authors/culture... Which I am doing my best not to mention so this discussion doesn't turn ugly and political. |
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Post by Señor Goose on Mar 23, 2015 21:15:04 GMT
I don't know if anyone else noticed this but look how Annie is standing in that last panel. She seems positively thrilled to see her dad areafter class. After everything he did she still wants to impress him.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 23, 2015 21:15:12 GMT
Does anyone else find it weird that a place built on technology would still use black boards? I believe blackboards and chalk are more eco-friendly than dry-erase and they don't use nearly as much electricity (yes mining chalk does require energy). I'd call the blackboards a mark of "posh-ness" and a sort of traditionalism over neo-Luddite-ism or anything. |
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Post by zimmyzims on Mar 23, 2015 21:45:00 GMT
Does anyone else find it weird that a place built on technology would still use black boards? Not really. In our university we have a recently reconstructed and very modern math faculty and it has blackboards everywhere. It's extremely functional. Of course, math faculty may be a bit of an exception. However, Anthony seems to be starting from foundational molecular biology, and while maybe some fancy computer illustrations could be exciting, it is hard to see how it would need more than a black board and representation on a black board has the immense advantages of being relatively simple to see and being created during teaching. This latter aspect slows the pace of the appearance of the visual data at least down to the pace at which the teacher is able to draw/write it while orally explaining it, and allows the students follow how the text and figures they are shown are made, instead of the teacher pulling a slide after another on a high speed and leaving the students watch in awe. It seems like this class did not advance too slow even in these conditions. |
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Post by bluevitriol on Mar 23, 2015 22:27:50 GMT
Prediction: Scene change. We will not be privy to the upcoming encounter between Antimony & Anthony. I'm not sure what we'll see instead, though. Donlans? Jones and Renard? Red and Bugsy? Aaargh!! Not this! If it is this, we'll be waiting to see this for weeks! It is this, isn't it! It's so gonna be this! Tom is such a troll! And I bet, when the scene change is over, it cuts first straight to Annie after her private meeting with Anthony. Gosh... SilverbackRon, at some point there must be Jimmy jims flipping. My thoughts if keeping with Tom and Anthony: Cut scene to something, then back to Annie who looks about to cry, she tells Kat that all he wanted was to give her the book and tell her to "Be more with the program" for the next class, everyone hates Anthony, chapter ends with her going to do homework and theres a note in the book for her from Anthony, that we NEVER get to see what is says. |
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Post by ctso74 on Mar 23, 2015 23:08:09 GMT
I know other people have mentioned this, but I'm throwing my money in on the side of "Mr. Control Freak wants to personally tutor his daughter". Call it a feeling, but I can think of some reasons for it, too... just to speculate/brainstorm further: Her performance reflects on him and he expects her and wants her to proceed faster. He wants to use her connection to the Forest for some special project. He was asked to tutor her one-on-one so she can continue to fulfill her mediumship duties. He wants to isolate her from the rest of the students so that she becomes increasingly dependent on him. He wants to suddenly play involved Father again. She was "homeschooled" when she lived in the hospital. He needs a lab assistant because of his hand and due to the nature of his special obsession, Antimony makes the natural choice. I like this. It could be the first ambiguous step towards reconciliation, a renewed attempt at "bone lasers", or a way of vetting Annie's loyalties before telling her his agenda. |
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Post by ctso74 on Mar 23, 2015 23:22:43 GMT
Aaargh!! Not this! If it is this, we'll be waiting to see this for weeks! It is this, isn't it! It's so gonna be this! Tom is such a troll! And I bet, when the scene change is over, it cuts first straight to Annie after her private meeting with Anthony. Gosh... SilverbackRon, at some point there must be Jimmy jims flipping. My thoughts if keeping with Tom and Anthony: Cut scene to something, then back to Annie who looks about to cry, she tells Kat that all he wanted was to give her the book and tell her to "Be more with the program" for the next class, everyone hates Anthony, chapter ends with her going to do homework and theres a note in the book for her from Anthony, that we NEVER get to see what is says. Nice! That is some awesome stuff, right there. |
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Post by TBeholder on Mar 24, 2015 0:03:14 GMT
I'm cautiously hopeful from the "please" in Anthony's request. I'm sure he expects her to obey, but there are more dickish ways he could have phrased that. Well, now that the lesson ended, he can't order students around just like that, can he? "Mr. Control Freak wants to personally tutor his daughter". [...] he was "homeschooled" when she lived in the hospital. the root of the evil, exposed!  Someone has doubtless pointed this out a hundred times before as well, but Zimmy's hair gets like Antimony's in the moment that she strikes. Perhaps Anthony is under the impression that it was actually Antimony who did it somehow. In this case, a Tin Man's conclusion should be that either: A) Antimony talks about herself in 3rd person. Between this and a random attack, it looks like the poor girl have mental problems that weren't resolved by her Court friends and staff before getting really bad. And thus need to be addressed ASAP. B) The spirit of Surma is annoyed with him enough to bitchslap him From Beyond. Which would be in character, by the way - and Anthony, being ignorant of That Etheric Nonsense, cannot confirm or deny possibility, but knows it was well within her power while she was alive. This also requires immediate action. Either one could be enough that he would finalize any other business and run to the Court in contrail-from-the-butt haste. Which seems to be the observed result. Ergo, you may be onto something. And incidentally, even if sometimes kids don't always know best, are you honestly of the opinion that parents are never wrong unless abuse is part of the equation? This is easy to flip around. And incidentally, are you honestly of the opinion that if parents happen to be wrong, there's need to scream the ABUSE and hastily call for condemnation (stakes and fuel drawn in m$paint™)? href="http://gunnerkrigg.com/?p=367">Remember this?</a> Yeah, I'm thinking <s>Dad</s> Sir made a habit of pushing Annie's buttons. Maybe she'll tell him to quit it? What do you mean? Tom have to point out when there's Jones or Anthony on screen, too, so no one would mistake them for each other? basically I had a father who was an abusive dick in more ways than one. many years later I have some sort of likely 'explanation' for his behaviours. I mean, it's a good set of 'explanations' but it certainly didn't fix our relationship, nor did it give me closure or peace of mind. I think Vexxarr phrased it the best. Anyway, this is an inherent property of any "explanations", yes. Those things came via both work and also finding my own peace via, well, a lot of therapy. In which the trend emerges. on top of it all, my father was probably *still* a better father than Anthony is. Funny how some forumgoers condemn him specifically for NOT making Annie put up with this crap for a few MORE years, isn't? She is nervously smiling. My thoughts if keeping with Tom and Anthony: Cut scene to something, then back to Annie who looks about to cry, she tells Kat that all he wanted was to give her the book and tell her to "Be more with the program" for the next class, everyone hates Anthony, chapter ends with her going to do homework and theres a note in the book for her from Anthony, that we NEVER get to see what is says. I'll just go bake gunnercookies now. |
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Post by ditchboyus on Mar 24, 2015 0:13:11 GMT
Some observations that have little to do with the A-hole standing in front of the class. - Annie and Kat are sharing Kat's book in panel 1. Defiance starts in small ways! - Paz has not appeared in this class. We've seen a lot of the other students, many in the background drawn in low resolution, but not Paz. Her hair is fairly distinct even in low resolution, so this seems to be an intentional omission. I assumed Paz would lean towards Biology, but she doesn't appear to be here. Matt has not appeared either. Clearly Paz and Matt have skipped class and are making out somewhere. Poor Kat. |
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Post by Kitty Hamilton on Mar 24, 2015 0:26:13 GMT
kitty Hamilton: Well, if you define "abusive" as any deleterious interaction then I would agree. All child-parent relationships are an inherently traumatic process of re-shaping a pure individuality into something more suitable to a functioning existence within a less-than-ideal world... The very first thing many children learn is how to "lie" to garner the attention they need from their parents, as in the case of crocodile tears. Purity is sacrificed for survival. I'm not saying I like it, but it's sometimes necessary. There's a difference between disciplining a child for bad behavior and, say, disappearing for two years, appearing one day as a teacher without warning, then ridiculing your child in front of their classmates. By any normal relationship standards, Anthony should be in damage control mode right now. It doesn't matter if he had extremely good reasons for disappearing for all that time; lots of kids would be traumatized by such outright parental abandonment |
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He naturally replied, "You know where you can bite me!" but it did not occur to him at the time this was an indirect attack on the teacher, complimentary to my witty mockery of the teacher even though contradictory to what I'd actually said. The rest of the semester she simply wrote "D" or "F" on whatever I turned in for that class without reading it. My friend needed the class and struggled his way to win her approval, busting his @ss and worrying himself into ulcer-territory to get a "C-". I didn't need this class and didn't particularly care about it trashing my GPA, so I continued to instigate in a way that this forum might find odd... I would bring in classical works like collected Aristotle and read them silently in class, ignoring her lecture and the texts that she'd chosen to cure us of our supposed-ignorance. Being one of those insufferable the-world-didn't-begin-until-1800s-Germany** sorts this drove her right up the wall; it was an implied critique of her deeply-held convictions as well as her choice of materials for the class and her lectures. But she couldn't DO anything other than flunk me as long as I continued to hand in assignments (half-assed at best but on time) and I didn't let her provoke me into anything that could be called a disciplinary breach. As graduation time neared one of my other teachers told me that she was lobbying them for one other to flunk me so that I couldn't graduate but was so far finding no takers; in retaliation I began arriving to class early and writing populist or classical quotations (like from a daily calendar) that I knew would agitate her, then disappearing and reentering with the other students for plausible deniability (ala English class ninja). I did not do this every day, so as not to get caught, but randomly once or twice per week. And it worked like a charm, she overplayed her hand trying to browbeat the other teachers into flunking me and people started to lose track of who was the kid and who was the teacher in this situation. It probably would have happened anyway without my minimal assistance but I'm given to understand she was let go after her initial contract.
