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Post by blazingstar on Mar 10, 2021 20:23:46 GMT
We have a story where forest gods and secretive organizations plot against each other, robot society slowly carve its way into the world of the biologic, ancient events connect to the present and the future, a girl unknowingly walks the path to godhood, and many secrets still loom over us. Amidst it all we get a page that just shows a girl putting away her makeup, and there's so much meaning to it! The only thing I can say is... Yes, thank you for reading this comic about girls putting on makeup and getting their hair cut. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 10, 2021 23:00:35 GMT
Re: diagnosing cartoon characters: I am not a psychology but Anthony did engage in self-harm (gruesome self-mutilation, actually) in an effort to escape feelings of grief and loss. Am thinking someone with a history of secure and stable relationships would probably not do that, though the fact that there's magic in the Gunnerverse that made the effort to bring Surma back at least somewhat plausible does qualify that in my mind (and to be fair, he had some success).
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Post by Polyhymnia on Mar 10, 2021 23:05:52 GMT
For whatever reason, this reminds me a lot of this page, but in a good way. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1352We’ve seen the emotions and the breakup, as well as her struggle to mask those emotions and push them down, and now she’s confronted them and found the peace on the other side. I feel like this was the page I needed for closure. I agree that it felt abrupt at first, but the ending feels right to me. |
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manabi
Junior Member
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Post by manabi on Mar 11, 2021 0:34:05 GMT
Antimony pendant still present. Shall we refer to this incarnation as 'Uncannie Fannie'? How about F. C. Annie? (Or C. F. Annie, whichever you prefer.) |
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Post by maxptc on Mar 11, 2021 0:46:55 GMT
Re: diagnosing cartoon characters: I am not a psychology but Anthony did engage in self-harm (gruesome self-mutilation, actually) in an effort to escape feelings of grief and loss. Am thinking someone with a history of secure and stable relationships would probably not do that, though the fact that there's magic in the Gunnerverse that made the effort to bring Surma back at least somewhat plausible does qualify that in my mind (and to be fair, he had some success). It wasn't really self harm in the "I can't handle ____insert stressor here_____ so I hurt myself" way, and more "Oh a God powerlevel creature told me I could have what I wanted for the bargin price of one hand." |
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Post by speedwell on Mar 11, 2021 0:55:51 GMT
Re: diagnosing cartoon characters: I am not a psychology but Anthony did engage in self-harm (gruesome self-mutilation, actually) in an effort to escape feelings of grief and loss. Am thinking someone with a history of secure and stable relationships would probably not do that, though the fact that there's magic in the Gunnerverse that made the effort to bring Surma back at least somewhat plausible does qualify that in my mind (and to be fair, he had some success). It wasn't really self harm in the "I can't handle ____insert stressor here_____ so I hurt myself" way, and more "Oh a God powerlevel creature told me I could have what I wanted for the bargin price of one hand." It can be thought of in a lot of ways, that tragic disaster of Tony's. I seem to be more aligned with the idea that Tony's subconscious motivation was, "Guilt and fear and self-hatred led me to follow a path into places so dark that I eventually believed I could gain a sort of redemption through accepting harm by and at the direction of abusers." Zimmy snapped him out of that one but good when she forced him to realise that not all harm inflicted on him was redemptive in nature.  The fact that he was predisposed to be manipulated in certain ways was a pardonable weakness, I think, and not a severe moral catastrophe of the "worship Satan for all the world's kingdoms" class. Edit: It's characteristic of the quality of Tom's writing that I can now see Zimmy in the role of an... I can only call it an anti-anti-hero, I suppose. An anti-hero is a main character who doesn't have the sort of virtuous attributes that you expect of a conventional hero. Zimmy is arguably showing moral virtue without being a protagonist or conventional hero. She doesn't even seem to do anything in a positive way, until closely examined for the effect her actions actually have on people. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 11, 2021 3:10:59 GMT
If there is a better term than self-harm for it then so be it, but I think there is reason to speculate that the act of self-mutilation was a capstone for his voyage away from the Court, the Donlans, his daughter, his co-workers, his peers, and his practice. That etheric being didn't just appear to him randomly to offer that deal, he sought out that entity and decided the sacrifice of his arm was worth it for the possibility that the entity might be telling the truth and the hope that it would work. Someone who has had stable and secure relationships is very unlikely to do this. Maybe that's pathology, maybe that's a history of insecure/unstable relationships, but I'm more inclined to the latter since he did appear to form a stable/secure bond with Surma. It's characteristic of the quality of Tom's writing that I can now see Zimmy in the role of an... I can only call it an anti-anti-hero, I suppose. An anti-hero is a main character who doesn't have the sort of virtuous attributes that you expect of a conventional hero. Zimmy is arguably showing moral virtue without being a protagonist or conventional hero. She doesn't even seem to do anything in a positive way, until closely examined for the effect her actions actually have on people. Spending so much of her childhood in other people's heads would probably make Zeta very insightful but would, I suspect, degrade her sense of self... which might explain some of the things we've seen in the comic. Needing Gamma to "gop" Nobodies sounds like Zeta has trouble filtering incoming information. Caveat: It should be remembered that we're mostly seeing Zeta through the lens of the etherically-attractive Antimony who can substitute for Gamma a little bit. She may do things very differently with people who are less attractive and less useful and it is possible she doesn't act as benignly with them. Also, as an imaginary entity that lives rent-free in other people's heads myself, I can't stress enough how utterly boring most people's lives are. People rarely do anything interesting and on average they spend a third of their lives asleep. The notion of getting stuck in some teenagers is my idea of hell. |
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Post by pyradonis on Mar 11, 2021 8:47:38 GMT
Amidst it all we get a page that just shows a girl putting away her makeup, and there's so much meaning to it!
I wish, I could enjoy this page like you do, I really do, but all I can think of is still "What the frag is this chapter supposed to be?"
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Post by foxurus on Mar 11, 2021 9:34:50 GMT
Sigh. I'm sad about this. I know the forum's been pretty anti-makeup since that page in Divine, but I always liked it and I was bummed out when Divine showed it as a negative thing. Now it's permanently gone and I'm sad. Oh well.
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Post by rafk on Mar 11, 2021 10:27:39 GMT
Hang on, the Annies fused?
I genuinely had not gathered that at all (having not been reading the forums for a while, and only coming in here because frankly I was kind of confused even by the bonus page).
I thought Annie's makeup was worn to protect her in some way - something she wore because her mother taught her to, not a security blanket (and her father disapproved because it is etheric/reminds him painfully of Surma too much). It has never come across to me in all the years reading this story that Annie's makeup was nothing more than a security blanket or reminder of her mother.
As for the two Annies situation suddenly being resolved by two going into Zimmingham and only one leaving, that was really not obvious even to someone like me who has been reading since the early days. I'm afraid this whole chapter has just been too cryptic and not in a good way, especially so deep into GK as a story. Very poorly done, I hate to say.
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Post by Angry Robot on Mar 11, 2021 11:28:57 GMT
I have questions. Not about the Annie-merger, I'm sure there'll be some exposition about that when Annie next meets Kat. No, I'm wondering:
1) What was the significance of the plastic toy soldier that appeared on the title page of the chapter, but nowhere else?
2) Which page in the chapter did the Archive thumbnail come from? I'm normally pretty good at spotting those but I'm drawing a blank on this one.
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Post by Per on Mar 11, 2021 11:47:19 GMT
1) What was the significance of the plastic toy soldier that appeared on the title page of the chapter, but nowhere else? Previously shown appearing in the toy shop. 2) Which page in the chapter did the Archive thumbnail come from? I'm normally pretty good at spotting those but I'm drawing a blank on this one. , middle. |
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Post by ghostiet on Mar 11, 2021 12:15:40 GMT
I am deeply, deeply underwhelmed by this entire chapter and the resolution to the "Two Annies" plotline, but at the same time I feel very non-comittal in that feeling because I imagine there will be something in future chapters to contextualize a lot of it.
Or maybe it'll just go the way of Jones and only be off-handedly referenced in chapter 89.
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Post by Angry Robot on Mar 11, 2021 13:06:23 GMT
Thank you! 1) What was the significance of the plastic toy soldier that appeared on the title page of the chapter, but nowhere else? Previously shown appearing in the toy shop. Well spotted, that's fairly obscure given how tiny they were in the original page! 2) Which page in the chapter did the Archive thumbnail come from? I'm normally pretty good at spotting those but I'm drawing a blank on this one. , middle. Ah, I was looking for some sort of door frame in Zimmingham - didn't realise it was overlapping panels! |
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Post by fia on Mar 11, 2021 13:51:57 GMT
Sigh. I'm sad about this. I know the forum's been pretty anti-makeup since that page in Divine, but I always liked it and I was bummed out when Divine showed it as a negative thing. Now it's permanently gone and I'm sad. Oh well. I'm seeing it as maybe in the future she can find makeup that matches herself. I kind of get it, if my mom were to pass suddenly, I might want to try to wear her jewelry or her perfume to remember her, and it would be hard to feel like I could wear anything else. Given that it is makeup, that's even harder. Maybe one day when she's a little older she can pick colors she likes (purple eyeshadow and yellowish lip color, very distinctive! very hard to wear!) and not just ones she likes because they were her mother's. I don't think the comic as a whole is "anti-makeup" –– if anything, it acknowledges all the meaning such a thing has, and that people have different thoughts about it. Tony definitely liked it on Surma, and she liked it on herself. P.S. I'm kind of hoping Annie will grow her hair long again now, and maybe one way of distinguishing older re-fused Annie from younger Annie visually would be to let older fused Annie wear a different color of makeup................. |
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Post by wies on Mar 11, 2021 15:39:09 GMT
You know, people have felt multiple different ways about this chapter and this page and discussed them, and I really liked that this forum is welcoming room for lots of opinions, even negative ones, without people being hostile to each other. I appreciate that about y'all.
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Post by lurkerbot on Mar 11, 2021 15:58:46 GMT
In a comment under the bonus page, Renardfan42 made the astute observation that Antimony's hair is now the same length it was just before Loup's trick; see here for example. |
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Post by Gemminie on Mar 11, 2021 17:02:40 GMT
Amidst it all we get a page that just shows a girl putting away her makeup, and there's so much meaning to it!
I wish, I could enjoy this page like you do, I really do, but all I can think of is still "What the frag is this chapter supposed to be?"
The chapter used a lot of misdirection on us, so it was confusing, all righty. Starting in media res with no idea whether we're even in physical reality or not, it was confusing from the beginning. The characters get sucked into Zimmingham, suggesting that they weren't there to begin with, because there's no precedent for going from one "layer" of Zimmingham to another, but now it seems that's exactly what happened, and there's no way to know how the Annies and Renard got there in the first place. Then Gamma kind of drifts in from behind the panels, and it turns out that the real Renard is there with her, in an ill-defined ethereal space that apparently has the thoughts of one of the tree elves in it somehow, so where exactly are they? She explains some things, at least: everything we're seeing is made of pieces of Annie and/or Zimmy. And she gives us some Zimmy backstory. But how much of this can we believe, considering how confusing everything else has been? Is this really Gamma? Is that really Renard? Once a writer tells us not to trust anything we see, it's very hard for them to show us any information we can trust. Gamma says it's going to be OK as long as they don't go to the toy shop, but she doesn't say why, and then they go to the toy shop. We apparently get to the very heart of the difference between Court Annie and Forest Annie. But then Zimmy seems to pull things together and let Gamma back in. Renard changes his attitude about Zimmy. And Zimmy decides to help Annie understand herself better, not explaining. This apparently means merging the two of them into one – which seems as if it would only be possible if they're really just two parts of the same person, except that everyone's been saying they're two Annies from alternate timelines, so does this mean everyone's been wrong about that the whole time? And then Annie's apparently reconciled her differences, with the makeup as a symbol of that. This chapter barely answers anything at all. In fact, it raises more questions than before. Who says Coyote's dead? I should totally try to write a wrap-up of this chapter. Sigh. I'm sad about this. I know the forum's been pretty anti-makeup since that page in Divine, but I always liked it and I was bummed out when Divine showed it as a negative thing. Now it's permanently gone and I'm sad. Oh well. I'm seeing it as maybe in the future she can find makeup that matches herself. I kind of get it, if my mom were to pass suddenly, I might want to try to wear her jewelry or her perfume to remember her, and it would be hard to feel like I could wear anything else. Given that it is makeup, that's even harder. Maybe one day when she's a little older she can pick colors she likes (purple eyeshadow and yellowish lip color, very distinctive! very hard to wear!) and not just ones she likes because they were her mother's. I don't think the comic as a whole is "anti-makeup" –– if anything, it acknowledges all the meaning such a thing has, and that people have different thoughts about it. Tony definitely liked it on Surma, and she liked it on herself. P.S. I'm kind of hoping Annie will grow her hair long again now, and maybe one way of distinguishing older re-fused Annie from younger Annie visually would be to let older fused Annie wear a different color of makeup................. I've been hoping Annie would pick a middle ground by still wearing makeup but just a touch of it, toning it down a bit. What she used to wear was an extreme look, not quite as extreme as, say, Mimi from the Drew Carey Show, but still, it stood out. But then, she puts it in the drawer here; she doesn't throw it away. It's a symbol. I hope she'll grow her hair long too. Her hair length is also a symbol. Long hair is what we saw when Annie looked at Urd, while Skuld had short hair. (It was the opposite for Kat.) For Annie, long hair seems to be a symbol of maturity. You know, people have felt multiple different ways about this chapter and this page and discussed them, and I really liked that this forum is welcoming room for lots of opinions, even negative ones, without people being hostile to each other. I appreciate that about y'all. I agree! |
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Post by maxptc on Mar 11, 2021 17:28:32 GMT
You know, people have felt multiple different ways about this chapter and this page and discussed them, and I really liked that this forum is welcoming room for lots of opinions, even negative ones, without people being hostile to each other. I appreciate that about y'all. This is the only forum I've lasted long term in, it's such a chill place. |
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Post by Igniz on Mar 12, 2021 0:21:37 GMT
 How about F. C. Annie? (Or C. F. Annie, whichever you prefer.)  |
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Post by DonDueed on Mar 12, 2021 2:06:58 GMT
Did I miss it, or has no one mentioned the double meaning of this page's title? It can refer to the makeup, obviously, but also to Annie's mother. Maybe this was just too obvious to point out, since it's so clear that that's what the makeup symbolizes to Annie.
Still, it's quite poignant. Never forgotten (sob)!
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Post by mturtle7 on Mar 12, 2021 6:17:43 GMT
Sigh. I'm sad about this. I know the forum's been pretty anti-makeup since that page in Divine, but I always liked it and I was bummed out when Divine showed it as a negative thing. Now it's permanently gone and I'm sad. Oh well. I'm not exactly sad about it, but it does feel pretty...ambiguous, to me, and I really get why others would feel sad about it! After all, when we first met Annie, the makeup didn't have a ton of emotional significance, it was just...well, in Kat's words, it was her thing. Actually, that page is a good way of demonstrating that it wasn't just us, as an audience...all her friends have always been super accepting of it, even when she was just this weird 12-year-old wearing ridiculous amounts of purple eyeshadow. Even as a kid, she OWNED that look, and it only got awesomer and awesomer as she grew up. So now I think everyone just naturally associates it with all of her most badass, iconic, moments...and now, that's leaving. And she's obviously cool with it, but it still feels a little reminiscent of the hair incident.
The more I think about it, the more I realize how complex the makeup has really been, as a story element. I mean, plot-wise, it's actually rather ridiculously straightforward: as Annie has mentioned multiple times, the makeup is something she wears to remember her mom, and all of the ways she's interacted with it have been perfectly realistic (in the sense that I could totally believe a real person acting this way) and consistent with that characterization. And yet, it's just SO AT ODDS with both the way modern media tends to portray both makeup AND grief itself, that it becomes super difficult for me (and, I think, lots of other readers on this forum) to wrap our heads around. We're used to makeup being portrayed as, like...this ultimate expression of shallow and/or sexy and/or deceptive femininity, we just can't handle it when it's treated as just another ornament someone can wear, which can have whatever significance the wearer feels like assigning to it. Exactly like, say, a fancy hat, or a little necklace.
And Annie's grief! You guys! You NEVER see this kind of grief portrayed anymore! The kind of grief where it's clearly a negative emotion, but it's also not a sign of weakness or something that MUST be gotten rid of as soon as possible! The kind of grief where you just quietly mourn a little every day, and keep most of those emotions on the inside, and that's OK! This is a TOTALLY NORMAL and relatively HEALTHY way to grieve, but I hardly ever see it in any movies or TV shows or - dare I say it - comics these days! It used to be considered 100% normal and proper for women to wear giant black veils for literal years after their husbands died...if someone did that today, they'd probably be called insane and/or emotionally unstable! What the heck has happened to our understanding of grief, you guys?!
Phew...I kind of went off the rails there, huh. I didn't mean for this post to be this long. Um...the point is, I get why you feel this way about the makeup, foxurus, but I also think Tom put more nuance into it than they're giving him credit for. And I like it. So, yeah. |
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Post by lurkerbot on Mar 12, 2021 15:56:39 GMT
Did I miss it, or has no one mentioned the double meaning of this page's title? It can refer to the makeup, obviously, but also to Annie's mother. Maybe this was just too obvious to point out, since it's so clear that that's what the makeup symbolizes to Annie.
Still, it's quite poignant. Never forgotten (sob)!
It occurs to me that the meaning of the chapter title Find Yourself can be almost the opposite of Get Lost. It's perhaps fitting that both chapters involve memories of Surma. |
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Post by foxurus on Mar 13, 2021 2:36:25 GMT
Sigh. I'm sad about this. I know the forum's been pretty anti-makeup since that page in Divine, but I always liked it and I was bummed out when Divine showed it as a negative thing. Now it's permanently gone and I'm sad. Oh well. I'm seeing it as maybe in the future she can find makeup that matches herself. I kind of get it, if my mom were to pass suddenly, I might want to try to wear her jewelry or her perfume to remember her, and it would be hard to feel like I could wear anything else. Given that it is makeup, that's even harder. Maybe one day when she's a little older she can pick colors she likes (purple eyeshadow and yellowish lip color, very distinctive! very hard to wear!) and not just ones she likes because they were her mother's. I don't think the comic as a whole is "anti-makeup" –– if anything, it acknowledges all the meaning such a thing has, and that people have different thoughts about it. Tony definitely liked it on Surma, and she liked it on herself. P.S. I'm kind of hoping Annie will grow her hair long again now, and maybe one way of distinguishing older re-fused Annie from younger Annie visually would be to let older fused Annie wear a different color of makeup................. New makeup would be nice! I thought Annie's makeup was worn to protect her in some way - something she wore because her mother taught her to, not a security blanket (and her father disapproved because it is etheric/reminds him painfully of Surma too much). It has never come across to me in all the years reading this story that Annie's makeup was nothing more than a security blanket or reminder of her mother. I think that's a major reason why I'm sad about the makeup going away for good. I was a fan of the makeup-is-a-spell-of-protection theory, as well. I'm not exactly sad about it, but it does feel pretty...ambiguous, to me, and I really get why others would feel sad about it! After all, when we first met Annie, the makeup didn't have a ton of emotional significance, it was just...well, in Kat's words, it was her thing. Actually, that page is a good way of demonstrating that it wasn't just us, as an audience...all her friends have always been super accepting of it, even when she was just this weird 12-year-old wearing ridiculous amounts of purple eyeshadow. Even as a kid, she OWNED that look, and it only got awesomer and awesomer as she grew up. So now I think everyone just naturally associates it with all of her most badass, iconic, moments...and now, that's leaving. And she's obviously cool with it, but it still feels a little reminiscent of the hair incident. The more I think about it, the more I realize how complex the makeup has really been, as a story element. I mean, plot-wise, it's actually rather ridiculously straightforward: as Annie has mentioned multiple times, the makeup is something she wears to remember her mom, and all of the ways she's interacted with it have been perfectly realistic (in the sense that I could totally believe a real person acting this way) and consistent with that characterization. And yet, it's just SO AT ODDS with both the way modern media tends to portray both makeup AND grief itself, that it becomes super difficult for me (and, I think, lots of other readers on this forum) to wrap our heads around. We're used to makeup being portrayed as, like...this ultimate expression of shallow and/or sexy and/or deceptive femininity, we just can't handle it when it's treated as just another ornament someone can wear, which can have whatever significance the wearer feels like assigning to it. Exactly like, say, a fancy hat, or a little necklace. Phew...I kind of went off the rails there, huh. I didn't mean for this post to be this long. Um...the point is, I get why you feel this way about the makeup, foxurus , but I also think Tom put more nuance into it than they're giving him credit for. And I like it. So, yeah. And you touched on part of it too, that when makeup is drawn attention to in media it's usually negatively, and Annie's mostly just existed and that was nice. And sure it's not, like, unrealistic that she's decided to stop, of course. I'm just disappointed about it. |
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