echo
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Currently contemplating if Tom's post counts are a reflection of timeloops, or a CSS trick?
Posts: 60
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Post by echo on Nov 30, 2020 23:53:33 GMT
By the way, the relationship between Zimmy and Gamma is also dysfunctional and abusive, but for some reason no significant part of the fandom seems to vocally resent Zimmy for that.
Probably because whenever Gamma has a chance to communicate in presence of the readers she seems to either be on at least friendly terms with Zimmy or to be standing up to her. I don't think Zimmy is the bee's knees or anything, but insomnia and seeing nightmarish things is rough. Caring for someone severely out of sorts is rough. It's basically just... rough. And being able to recognize abuse does not necessarily mean being able to do anything about it, defend against it, or mitigating the spread of it yourself. |
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Post by blahzor on Dec 1, 2020 0:44:05 GMT
That doesn't excuse Zimmy keeping Gamma from making any friends, lying to her and telling her everyone would say she is stupid and ugly. If that's not abusive behaviour, I don't know what it is. I agree. Zimmy can't even recognize people outright, outside of Kat god form and not, Annie and Gamma due to people looking like nobodies |
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Post by pyradonis on Dec 1, 2020 9:32:35 GMT
Zimmy can't even recognize people outright, outside of Kat god form and not, Annie and Gamma due to people looking like nobodies She sometimes cannot. When they met at the power station she thought the other kids were hallucinations because nobody else was supposed to be there at that time. Anyway, what does that have to do with her abusive behavior towards Gamma? |
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Post by blahzor on Dec 1, 2020 11:03:16 GMT
Zimmy can't even recognize people outright, outside of Kat god form and not, Annie and Gamma due to people looking like nobodies She sometimes cannot. When they met at the power station she thought the other kids were hallucinations because nobody else was supposed to be there at that time. Anyway, what does that have to do with her abusive behavior towards Gamma? The way she worded it to Annie makes it seem she couldn't most the time. Her abuse is Zimmy doesn't interact with people and has never slept in what 16-18 years. Was alone for what 15? of that? Spend a lot of time afraid and trying to avoid the spiders and whatever reality warping things happening. She is effectively a 5 year old only child and highly selfish and no structure in her life |
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Post by pyradonis on Dec 1, 2020 19:49:24 GMT
She sometimes cannot. When they met at the power station she thought the other kids were hallucinations because nobody else was supposed to be there at that time. Anyway, what does that have to do with her abusive behavior towards Gamma? The way she worded it to Annie makes it seem she couldn't most the time. Her abuse is Zimmy doesn't interact with people and has never slept in what 16-18 years. Was alone for what 15? of that? Spend a lot of time afraid and trying to avoid the spiders and whatever reality warping things happening. She is effectively a 5 year old only child and highly selfish and no structure in her life Well I do think a big part of the blame goes to the Court. They might have written off Zimmy as a hopeless case, but they are also giving precisely zero f*cks about Gamma's physical or mental health, or her education. Annie proves other people can serve to mitigate Zimmy's problems as well. The Court could look for such people among their employees and pupils. But instead they seem to be perfectly fine just letting that uneducated immigrant kid follow their study subject around around until she keels over and dies from constant sleep deprivation.
After writing all this, I feel the Court would feel much, much darker to us if we were to follow students from Chester or Foley around, instead of one of the "normal" houses...
PS: One can agree with your defense of Zimmy or not, but that's not even my original point...my original point is that usually nobody here even feels the need to defend Zimmy, because everybody seems to see her firmly as one of the "cool" characters of the comic and ignores all the crap she puts her beloved through. While Tony for example is constantly polarizing the audience.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 1, 2020 20:03:33 GMT
The way she worded it to Annie makes it seem she couldn't most the time. Her abuse is Zimmy doesn't interact with people and has never slept in what 16-18 years. Was alone for what 15? of that? Spend a lot of time afraid and trying to avoid the spiders and whatever reality warping things happening. She is effectively a 5 year old only child and highly selfish and no structure in her life Well I do think a big part of the blame goes to the Court. They might have written off Zimmy as a hopeless case, but they are also giving precisely zero f*cks about Gamma's physical or mental health, or her education. Annie proves other people can serve to mitigate Zimmy's problems as well. The Court could look for such people among their employees and pupils. But instead they seem to be perfectly fine just letting that uneducated immigrant kid follow their study subject around around until she keels over and dies from constant sleep deprivation. After writing all this, I feel the Court would feel much, much darker to us if we were to follow students from Chester or Foley around, instead of one of the "normal" houses... PS: One can agree with your defense of Zimmy or not, but that's not even my original point...my original point is that usually nobody here even feels the need to defend Zimmy, because everybody seems to see her firmly as one of the "cool" characters of the comic and ignores all the crap she puts her "beloved" through.
The Court's got a lot of problems and questionable practices but I don't think not offering kids there an education* is one of them. I figure that the reason Gamma wasn't getting any lessons is that ol' Zimmyzims forbade it. If Gamma learns stuff, to speak English in particular, she won't be as dependent on Zeta and may develop interests outside of Zeta and I think Zeta would consider that an existential threat. There's also the time involved; Gamma likely can't concentrate on both helping Zeta keep her screws tight and studies at the same time, and Gamma's already shorting herself on sleep. *education in useful-to-the-Court areas with a side of self-serving dogma, probably, but education nonetheless... |
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Post by blahzor on Dec 2, 2020 2:53:08 GMT
The way she worded it to Annie makes it seem she couldn't most the time. Her abuse is Zimmy doesn't interact with people and has never slept in what 16-18 years. Was alone for what 15? of that? Spend a lot of time afraid and trying to avoid the spiders and whatever reality warping things happening. She is effectively a 5 year old only child and highly selfish and no structure in her life Well I do think a big part of the blame goes to the Court. They might have written off Zimmy as a hopeless case, but they are also giving precisely zero f*cks about Gamma's physical or mental health, or her education. Annie proves other people can serve to mitigate Zimmy's problems as well. The Court could look for such people among their employees and pupils. But instead they seem to be perfectly fine just letting that uneducated immigrant kid follow their study subject around around until she keels over and dies from constant sleep deprivation. After writing all this, I feel the Court would feel much, much darker to us if we were to follow students from Chester or Foley around, instead of one of the "normal" houses... PS: One can agree with your defense of Zimmy or not, but that's not even my original point...my original point is that usually nobody here even feels the need to defend Zimmy, because everybody seems to see her firmly as one of the "cool" characters of the comic and ignores all the crap she puts her beloved through. While Tony for example is constantly polarizing the audience.
the only question we really need is to see if Gamma actually chooses to stay or even approach Zimmy in the first place. |
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Post by shaihulud on Dec 2, 2020 5:04:17 GMT
The Court's got a lot of problems and questionable practices but I don't think not offering kids there an education* is one of them.
"No classes or experiments or nothin'"
Seems they just abandoned the Chester kids out there, without any adult supervision or anything. Tom even mentions it in that chapters youtube video: youtu.be/BtxG1AqlOgA?t=636
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 2, 2020 11:34:50 GMT
The Court's got a lot of problems and questionable practices but I don't think not offering kids there an education* is one of them. "No classes or experiments or nothin'"
Seems they just abandoned the Chester kids out there, without any adult supervision or anything. Tom even mentions it in that chapters youtube video: youtu.be/BtxG1AqlOgA?t=636"The Court's been shutting everything down in the area you know. No classes or experiments or nuthin'." (emphasis added) (rewatches video for context) "[K]ind of abandoned, left to their own devices, which for Zimmy, like, she couldn't have asked for a better situation." While that may mean that there's zero Court oversight and that the kids in Chester are frequently unsupervised, there's still the adults of Chester, wherever they now may be. Gamma and Zeta are a special case, though. They've been getting the optional or non-education since way before the disaster, move, and preparations for Omega. |
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Post by speedwell on Dec 2, 2020 13:26:38 GMT
PS: One can agree with your defense of Zimmy or not, but that's not even my original point...my original point is that usually nobody here even feels the need to defend Zimmy, because everybody seems to see her firmly as one of the "cool" characters of the comic and ignores all the crap she puts her beloved through. While Tony for example is constantly polarizing the audience.
Actually it's not, personally, that I give Zimmy a pass, but when it comes to this particular role-playing game, I seem to mentally put her with the "monsters" and not so much with the "characters", if you know what I mean. I'd definitely treat her as a human being if I were her teacher or friend, but I don't think of her as exactly human (not worse, just different). I don't expect the same perception of value or even of danger from her; in fact I expect more human-standard responses from the fairies. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2020 17:11:30 GMT
Zimmy's behavior is bad, but the behavior between two peers is a lot less monstrous than the behavior of a relentlessly abusive man toward his own daughter.
"Good Tony" which is what I guess we are supposed to think we have now is still someone who the court version of CPS should absolutely unequivocally terminate the parental rights of immediately. He has no business being around children let alone raising one. Annie was absolutely better off wandering the halls and talking to ghosts than she is "with her father".
Yes, he has a backstory and he even has good qualities. He's still a complete failure as a father who is actively and on an ongoing basis damaging his daughter. I don't think that's a controversial statement at all. Annie's found family is mostly good if kind of distracted nerds. Tony is dangerous and mentally unstable and is letting his own severe mental health issues impact his child basically daily.
Zimmy is mean but saying "why don't people speak out against the mean girl when people are willing to speak out against tony" - IMO it's a vast difference in scope. Zimmy is obviously not a standard human and has somewhat limited control of her powers. Gamma is clearly being harmed by her, but she is also clearly being harmed by her own powers. Annie's judgement is that they are choosing to stay together and she doesn't have the right or the obligation to step in and "rescue" Gamma from Zimmy and that seems accurate to me, even though obviously Zimmy's behavior is bad.
In contrast I absolutely question why nobody is stopping Tony from non-stop abusing his daughter, including other "nice" characters who you would think would care about her based on their prior behavior.
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Post by pyradonis on Dec 3, 2020 11:53:28 GMT
Well I do think a big part of the blame goes to the Court. They might have written off Zimmy as a hopeless case, but they are also giving precisely zero f*cks about Gamma's physical or mental health, or her education. Annie proves other people can serve to mitigate Zimmy's problems as well. The Court could look for such people among their employees and pupils. But instead they seem to be perfectly fine just letting that uneducated immigrant kid follow their study subject around around until she keels over and dies from constant sleep deprivation. After writing all this, I feel the Court would feel much, much darker to us if we were to follow students from Chester or Foley around, instead of one of the "normal" houses... PS: One can agree with your defense of Zimmy or not, but that's not even my original point...my original point is that usually nobody here even feels the need to defend Zimmy, because everybody seems to see her firmly as one of the "cool" characters of the comic and ignores all the crap she puts her "beloved" through.
The Court's got a lot of problems and questionable practices but I don't think not offering kids there an education* is one of them. I figure that the reason Gamma wasn't getting any lessons is that ol' Zimmyzims forbade it. If Gamma learns stuff, to speak English in particular, she won't be as dependent on Zeta and may develop interests outside of Zeta and I think Zeta would consider that an existential threat. And because Zimmy forbade it the Court said "okay" and that's it then? And you think that is not questionable? I completely agree in your assessment why Zimmy does not want Gamma to learn anything, but the Court is responsible for its inhabitants - especially the children. But they keep them both simply as study subjects like Kaspar Hauser.
[...] Zimmy is mean but saying "why don't people speak out against the mean girl when people are willing to speak out against tony" - IMO it's a vast difference in scope. Zimmy is obviously not a standard human and has somewhat limited control of her powers. Gamma is clearly being harmed by her, but she is also clearly being harmed by her own powers. Annie's judgement is that they are choosing to stay together and she doesn't have the right or the obligation to step in and "rescue" Gamma from Zimmy and that seems accurate to me, even though obviously Zimmy's behavior is bad. In contrast I absolutely question why nobody is stopping Tony from non-stop abusing his daughter, including other "nice" characters who you would think would care about her based on their prior behavior. I know you hate Tony a lot and wish he were dead, you have made that clear in most of the posts you have on this forum. I suspect he specifically triggers you in some way? I doubt anything I could say would make any lasting impression on you but I'll answer anyway. Keep in mind, by the way, that I'm not here to defend Tony (I think he's a terrible parent), but to question why one character's abuse gets overlooked and another one's does not.
I doubt Tony is a standard human as well, and even if he is, why should the rules be different when the abused person is a human girl in both cases? His personality harms him as well as Annie. He seems less mentally unstable than Zimmy. Annie chooses to stay with Tony, so the other "nice" character's judgment is probably the same - that they don't have the right or obligation to step in and "rescue" her.
At least Annie can live a mostly normal life. She gets an education. She has many friends. She can go to other people she trusts and speak with them when she has a problem. And she is not dependent on Tony. If she wants to, she can spend her time (outside of classes) wherever else she wants.
Gamma has none of these things, she only has Zimmy. She might trust Annie, but she can't even go to speak with her because she has to trail Zimmy all the time. Oh, and looking at her now, I expect she won't live to see her 30th birthday.
Anyway, in both cases the Court is the only one with the authority to "rescue" anyone here and they never seem to care about their subjects' well-being in any way, so I doubt any of it will change without some outside influence.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 3, 2020 22:25:33 GMT
And because Zimmy forbade it the Court said "okay" and that's it then? And you think that is not questionable? I completely agree in your assessment why Zimmy does not want Gamma to learn anything, but the Court is responsible for its inhabitants - especially the children. But they keep them both simply as study subjects like Kaspar Hauser. ...Anyway, in both cases the Court is the only one with the authority to "rescue" anyone here and they never seem to care about their subjects' well-being in any way, so I doubt any of it will change without some outside influence. As a reader of the comic I can say that there might be a way to "normalize" Zeta by increasing the etheric pressure around her, thus preventing Zimmingham and other eruptions of alternate realities. If the Court did that then they could probably give Zeta and Gamma a normal life with a proper* education, or at least give Gamma significant periods of rest. That would require a major allocation of Court resources and the reduced ether elsewhere might have a negative impact on whatever else they're studying and would probably prevent them from studying Zeta herself while she is pressurized. That wasn't done. We don't know why but I don't think the Court would want to go to that level of expense and inconvenience, which can be criticized but also defended, but experimenting here is one of the major priorities of the Court. I also don't think Zeta would want this for the reasons I went into before. Additionally, Zeta wouldn't be going around on patrol for spiders and in the process dealing with other problems even if she wasn't confined to a particular location that they could pressurize with ether. So, short of that, what can the Court do if Zeta doesn't want to go to class? They could treat Zeta like a delinquent or mental patient and try to make her go to class, but that would probably cause all sorts of issues and eventually force the girls to try to escape the Court. What appears to have been done is permit Zeta and Gamma to go to class and do schoolwork when they wish, as well as allow her free rein to wander the Court as long as she cooperates with the experiments. They eat when they want, rest when they want and go where they want, which makes the Court the best place in the world Zeta could live, most likely. They're treating her (and by extension Gamma) more like an etheric being who resides in the Court then a child, but I don't see a better option. *see previous post by me for what I think of Court free education |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2020 22:30:20 GMT
The court is not a benevolent organization. Annie's friends are benevolent. I would never expect the court to "help" anyone - in most situations the court leadership does harm, not good.
I would on the other hand expect Annie's friends to help her, because the rest of the comic is basically about them helping her or her helping them.
Since I guess you want to know why I post about Tony, I post about what I am interested in other people's opinions on. Most of the comic is very straightforward - basically a modern fantasy story with an interesting protagonist in an interesting world. I don't really have much in the way of questions for other people about it as I'm fine to let it unfold on its own.
Tony's character is such a weird outlier. IMO the characters around him (Annie, her friends, other court members) do not react to him the way they react to nearly all other harmful persons or things. They seem fine letting Annie be in an abusive home I guess as long as the abuse is just mental not physical. I think this is weird. I'm not sure what Tom's trying to say here - is he saying that this is normal and it's normal for good people to not care that a friend is being abused? Is he saying that this is unacceptable but somehow the best possible option for some unknown reason? I really don't "get it" whereas I basically understand most of the story Tom is trying to tell or at least I think I do. For that reason I come here to see if other readers have some insights about what Tom is trying to say with the way that Tony acts towards Annie and the way everyone else reacts toward Tony's bad behavior which I haven't figured out and to say "I think this is weird" so other people who find it weird will know they aren't the only ones.
As far as other characters not reacting to Gamma/Zimmy the way you think they should, to me it seems pretty clear that the characters think that Gamma's relationship with Zimmy is at least voluntary enough that it is not up to them to try to end it. Annie's relationship with Tony is explicitly not voluntary, and that along with a lot of other things makes me really question why none of her friends try to step in and stop the abuse.
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Post by wies on Dec 4, 2020 5:23:58 GMT
Annie's relationship with Tony is explicitly not voluntary I am not sure what you mean with that. Annie has been shown repeatedly wishing to be closer to her father. He sucks at parenting, but that doesn't make the relationship involuntary, if that is what you mean with a voluntary relationship. |
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Post by Gemminie on Dec 4, 2020 6:46:19 GMT
As far as other characters not reacting to Gamma/Zimmy the way you think they should, to me it seems pretty clear that the characters think that Gamma's relationship with Zimmy is at least voluntary enough that it is not up to them to try to end it. Annie's relationship with Tony is explicitly not voluntary, and that along with a lot of other things makes me really question why none of her friends try to step in and stop the abuse. I think it's pretty clear why we, living in the real world, see the Zimmy-Gamma relationship differently from the Tony-Annie relationship: first of all, they're peers, and second of all, their relationship is friendship/romantic. This is opposed to Tony and Annie: they're father and daughter(s), and they're not peers at all; Tony has explicit power over her, as she's legally a minor and he can make some decisions for her. That power comes at a price; a parent has a responsibility to make good decisions for their children as well as to provide for them in other ways. Tony has not made good choices in that regard. True, some of those choices have been metaphysical and would be hard to prove in a court of law (nearly killing her by cutting off his hand and using his blood and bones in a ritual to pull her soul out of her body). But other bad choices aren't hard to prove at all (vanishing from her life after her mother's death and not so much as contacting her for over two years; publicly humiliating her in front of an entire class of students). But then there are choices that the Court, at least, would agree with 100%: having her held back a year was their idea, not his (and is a result of Annie's plagiarism, which was her choice and had to have consequences). Forbidding her from going to the Forest is something the Court has wanted to do for some time, for some reason (likely because Coyote wanted her there, and anything he wanted couldn't have been good, from the Court's point of view; and considering that her visits to the Forest have resulted in Loup, they might have been right). And taking Renard away from her – well, Renard is a known murderer from the Court's point of view; Annie's harboring of Renard has long been a point of contention between her and the Court. Am I saying Tony was right to do these things? No, I'm saying he had full Court backing for them. I'm trying to see where there's evidence of ongoing abuse now. The most recent time I can think of when Tony was abusive toward Annie was here (chapter 65). More recently, interactions between them seem more like this (chapter 73) and what we've just seen in chapter 78. I wouldn't call this most recent incident abusive; just a sign that he's a somehow damaged person and his daughter(s) are trying to understand him. What it looks like to me is that he did some abusive things, and at first Annie's friends couldn't do anything about it – because at first, none of them knew where he was, not even Kat's parents. They didn't even know he was back until after he showed up for the first day of classes. Then, after the events of that first day, they did try to help. Kat's parents invited Tony and Annie over for dinner, and Donnie tried to confront Tony. It didn't do much good. Then Donnie went to Tony alone (but with Annie's blinker stone) to ask him about where he went, what happened, and why he did what he'd done to Annie – and a lot of that information he volunteered without prompting; he knew what Donnie wanted to know about. But anyway, Annie's friends and allies did try to step in. They couldn't go against the Court, though. Too much power there. As wies said, I don't know how Annie's relationship with Tony is "explicitly not voluntary"; he asked her whether she wanted to move in with him when he got his new house in Seashore Evacuation Town, and she said she wanted to, with apparently positive emotions about it. I suppose she could have stayed in the Huge White Room of Implied Insignificance, but no, I think the Court would've evacuated her elsewhere, as it did Kat, if she hadn't agreed to live with Tony. That was a choice she made, meaning it was voluntary. Unless you mean that he's her dad whether she likes it or not, and in that case you're right; that's not voluntary. But she chose to live under the same roof with him. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2020 7:43:38 GMT
I think the comic really explicitly establishes that Tony breaks Annie's will using classic abuse techniques. He strips her of her individuality by forcing her to comply with arbitrary rules regarding literally every detail of her appearance, dress, etc., in an ongoing campaign of extremely strict, arbitrary rules and emotional brutality. He also publicly shames her and separates her from her friends, and he then remains emotionally aloof and withholds anything but the most minimal praise.
Of course he doesn't have to keep abusing her now. He has broken her. She is constantly chasing his approval now and all he has to do to keep her broken is to dangle it juuuuust out of reach. A battered spouse or battered child isn't just a battered spouse or child in the moment the blow lands, the purpose of the blow is to establish dominance. As long as he has dominance, there's no need for further direct attacks, but the relationship remains extremely abusive.
If she starts to stand up to him, he'll just break her again.
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Post by pyradonis on Dec 4, 2020 10:11:47 GMT
That wasn't done. We don't know why but I don't think the Court would want to go to that level of expense and inconvenience, which can be criticized but also defended, but experimenting here is one of the major priorities of the Court. I also don't think Zeta would want this for the reasons I went into before. Additionally, Zeta wouldn't be going around on patrol for spiders and in the process dealing with other problems even if she wasn't confined to a particular location that they could pressurize with ether. She wouldn't be going around on patrol for spiders? You're making a joke, I assume? And except for that one time in "Divine", Zimmy dealt only with problems which came about because of her condition. And Jack was almost too far gone before she finally decided to help him. I'm not really sure what you are talking about here. So, short of that, what can the Court do if Zeta doesn't want to go to class? They could treat Zeta like a delinquent or mental patient and try to make her go to class, but that would probably cause all sorts of issues and eventually force the girls to try to escape the Court. What appears to have been done is permit Zeta and Gamma to go to class and do schoolwork when they wish, as well as allow her free rein to wander the Court as long as she cooperates with the experiments. They eat when they want, rest when they want and go where they want, which makes the Court the best place in the world Zeta could live, most likely. They're treating her (and by extension Gamma) more like an etheric being who resides in the Court then a child, but I don't see a better option. As I said: find someone other persons who can be with Zimmy and act as etheric heat sinks, so Gamma can have a goddamn break occasionally. We know Annie can do it as well, there might be others. The Court is full of etherically sensitive people after all. It shouldn't be that hard to at least try it.
He strips her of her individuality by forcing her to comply with arbitrary rules regarding literally every detail of her appearance, dress, etc., in an ongoing campaign of extremely strict, arbitrary rules and emotional brutality. Well, this is simply not true. But it obviously seems further discussion is not wanted, so I'll refrain from an elaborate answer. |
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Post by wies on Dec 4, 2020 11:05:08 GMT
I consider Tony's profound failure in parenting less rooted in abuse, and more in utter neglect. (which, fair enough, could be considered a kind of abuse)
It is less that he made Annie chase his approval, and more that his neglect + Surma slowly dwindling away made her hungry for the connection with the only other person she knew in that hospital. I think we can safely say that Tony doesn't desire annie looking up to him.
I both agree and disagree with what kryptography is saying about Tony's actions. The trouble is that we only can assume so far how much of his actions were demanded by the Court and how much of it was Tony's own idea. (I am inclined to think putting Renard under his control was the latter)
Also, it is complicated, but I think he didn't want to strip Annie of her individuality. Like, cutting her own hair was entirely her action, and I think putting on the dress too. He did insult her and demand her taking the make-up off, which were a few of the harmful things he did, but his motive was making her look less like Surma, not curtailing her expression of individuality, even if that ended up being the result.
It is also important to remember that he didn't even wanted to return and intrude on Annie's life. He just wanted to die out here, but the court forced him.
I also disagree that he has broken her. Courtnie did stand up to him and declared he wasn't going to control whether she put make-up or not. Also, recently she came to him to talk, and he managed to wring out some broken sentences out of himself before fleeing the house on his socks; that isn't a parent bent on breaking his child.
I notice Kryptography has deleted their account and if they are reading this: I hope you are doing well and that you are taking care of yourself. You can always return when you want to!
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 4, 2020 11:08:54 GMT
She wouldn't be going around on patrol for spiders? You're making a joke, I assume? And except for that one time in "Divine", Zimmy dealt only with problems which came about because of her condition. And Jack was almost too far gone before she finally decided to help him. I'm not really sure what you are talking about here. I was half-joking. Zeta going around looking for spiders or otherwise wandering did provide Antimonies the benefit of her insight with their twinning problem and she did solve that issue where Anthony was sucking their soul accidentally, but I suspect that Zeta sometimes deals with bugs and other etheric vermin when she finds them, along with her spiders. She may not always know which ones came from her head and which wandered in on their own. As I said: find someone other persons who can be with Zimmy and act as etheric heat sinks, so Gamma can have a goddamn break occasionally. We know Annie can do it as well, there might be others. The Court is full of etherically sensitive people after all. It shouldn't be that hard to at least try it. Well, knowing Zeta it might be very hard. It'd be problematic to compel people to be together for long periods in normal conditions with "normal" people. Compound that with the fact that Zeta isn't very easy to get along with on a good day, plus the fact that she doesn't want anyone to come between her and Gamma,* and you've got a recipe for perpetual strife. The etherically gifted would also be more likely to be pampered by Court standards, because they'd be useful elsewhere and the stronger they are the more useful, so putting up with babysitting would cost the Court something proportional. There would also be a balancing act between who gets what shift and how much mojo is enough, which would be tricky but not impossible if they had enough people. It would be harder if it was kids Zeta's own age being drafted; they probably wouldn't be able to repress the hygiene comments like adults would and they'd be less able to deal with the general stress let alone getting lost in unreality if/when it happens. Last, there is risk involved for the persons around Zeta; Zimmingham isn't entirely safe, as old Jack found out. Doing things mechanically would get around all of those staffing problems but would be a big expense and a drain on resources. If there was an easy solution I figure the Court would have done it. *...and that's understating things, Zimmy has even lost her temper with an unintentionally-insensitive comment from the etherically-attractive Antimony once. |
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echo
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Currently contemplating if Tom's post counts are a reflection of timeloops, or a CSS trick?
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Post by echo on Dec 6, 2020 14:23:19 GMT
I think the comic really explicitly establishes that Tony breaks Annie's will using classic abuse techniques. He strips her of her individuality by forcing her to comply with arbitrary rules regarding literally every detail of her appearance, dress, etc., in an ongoing campaign of extremely strict, arbitrary rules and emotional brutality. He also publicly shames her and separates her from her friends, and he then remains emotionally aloof and withholds anything but the most minimal praise. Of course he doesn't have to keep abusing her now. He has broken her. She is constantly chasing his approval now and all he has to do to keep her broken is to dangle it juuuuust out of reach. A battered spouse or battered child isn't just a battered spouse or child in the moment the blow lands, the purpose of the blow is to establish dominance. As long as he has dominance, there's no need for further direct attacks, but the relationship remains extremely abusive. If she starts to stand up to him, he'll just break her again. The comic, itself, runs on arbitrary rules that ends up being quite important. It's this order vs chaos nightmare, where the order is suffocating, but hey, you wanna go renegade go ahead, play into the hands of Coyote and risk hurting tons of innocents. Annie, herself, runs on psychopomp rules not every reader(not me, at least), understands. And the process of understanding in a scientific setting is by necessity coercive and intrusive, when not outright sneaky and manipulative. |
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Post by Gemminie on Dec 7, 2020 18:32:53 GMT
I consider Tony's profound failure in parenting less rooted in abuse, and more in utter neglect. (which, fair enough, could be considered a kind of abuse) I'm not a lawyer, so I looked up the legal definition, and the first law site that I found (no, this is not a thoroughly researched post) said that child neglect is "the failure of a parent or caregiver to provide proper care for a child," where "proper care" is defined as providing "adequate shelter, clothing, food, medical care, supervision, and education." Legally speaking anyway, Tony can't be accused of neglecting Annie. After all, he's seen that all her needs are provided. The Court provides all these things, and Tony made sure Annie went to school there. Yes, that's legally speaking, not emotionally speaking. Emotional neglect is also a thing. Annie's made it pretty clear over the years that she wants parental attention and isn't getting it. (Especially before Tony returned. She was getting exactly zero parental attention.) It seems difficult to imagine Tony desiring that, yes. What he feels internally is often something that can only be speculated at. We do know that he feels terrible and torments himself with the thought that he almost killed Annie with his selfish and desperate emotionally-motivated actions. That probably makes him want to control his emotions even more tightly. We often speculate at what might have caused him to be so emotionally locked down – might he have harmed someone he loved in the past because of an emotionally-based choice he made? Why won't he talk about his parents? And yes, Annie wants parental attention because Surma's attention is gone due to her death, while Tony's attention is sterile and unemotional, then completely absent, then harsh and disapproving when he returns. Tony told Donnie that the Court demanded that Annie be held back a year, if I recall. Like you, I'm less certain about demanding that she not visit the Forest and that she give up Renard. Either the Court wants him to demand those things, or Tony chose to demand those things for her safety, but either way, the Court agrees with them 100%. (Well, until Coyote knocks over a building.) Anyway, that means that when Tony gives Renard back to her, he's bucking the Court for her. The littlest things can carry the greatest weight. I agree: Tony's demands had the results both of stripping Annie of her individuality and of separating her from her emotional support system, but I don't think those were his goals. She cut her hair as part of her improvised magic ritual to separate her rage. I have a hypothesis that says that Annie with longer hair = more mature (and as a mirror image, Kat with shorter hair = more mature), so cutting her hair meant assuming a less mature position, one in which she's a child and her father is more in charge of her life, so that might be consistent with her psychology. Tony's emotions got out of control the day he returned, and again he made an emotionally-motivated decision that hurt someone. (Another possible reason why he's so emotionally locked down around short-haired Court Annie, perhaps? He sees the daughter he accidentally harmed?) Yes, he didn't feel as if he was worthy to be her father anymore. He said that as far as he was concerned, Annie's father died out there. The Court threatened Annie's future to make him come back. Would they really have kicked her out of the Court? Who knows. But the threat worked. Yes, I don't see her as broken. She doesn't automatically do whatever he says. He doesn't demand much of her, either. Her behavior isn't much different now from before Tony returned. She's doing experiments on him now. I also hope Kryptography is well – there is clearly something about this story or at least this aspect of it that upsets them a great deal. Frankly Annie's story draws me in because it's a lot like my story; my mother died when I was young, leaving my father to care for us and leaving me with a shortage of parental attention. I really feel for Annie in that respect. But I wasn't an only child, and my father didn't vanish and send me to a mysterious boarding school. Also I haven't seen any psychopomps. But I digress. I hope Kryptography is OK. |
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Post by wies on Dec 8, 2020 13:09:28 GMT
(Another possible reason why he's so emotionally locked down around short-haired Court Annie, perhaps? He sees the daughter he accidentally harmed?) Interesting theory. It would make sense. Thanks for making such a thorough examination of Antony and Antimony's fascinating relationship. |
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Post by Gemminie on Dec 9, 2020 20:12:12 GMT
Thanks for making such a thorough examination of Antony and Antimony's fascinating relationship. Thank you – I have a tendency to think a subject into the ground, where it gets stuck. But I do find Tony and the Annies' relationship fascinating, especially now that there are two of her. I was prepared to hate him when he first appeared in person, but as time has gone by it's become clear that, as with most elements of this story, things are more complicated than they first seemed. Tom's got a very good touch with explaining only what absolutely needs explaining at any given time, leaving gaps that can be filled later, when it's effective to do so. |
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