Gunnerkrigg Court: would you still "oh, robot" me if i was a worm

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > BSS: Bisexual Super Son > Gunnerkrigg Court: would you still "oh, robot" me if i was a worm

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

Calaveron posted:

I think that most of the time, when an author claims his work is terrible and horrible and embarassing, it's guaranteed he's only fishing for compliments.
Having seen some of Tom's old comics and scribbles, I do believe that he's one of the exceptions to the rule and dude does honestly believe his work is not up to snuff.

That's bullshit. Most artists are genuinely stupidly insecure about their work.

On the other hand, it's quite possible Tom isn't entirely serious when he says things you guys interpret as proof of his deep, incurable depression. Or maybe he's just a pessimist! Pessimists can be happy, too! They just tend to downplay possibilities of future happiness.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2010 16:46

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 06:40

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

Brannock posted:

The real question here is was Jeanne being straightforward or speaking in metaphor when she said they shot and trapped her heart in the river?

Don't be silly, she was in love with the elf dude. "Leaving one's heart" is not an uncommon expression.

There's "twist" and there's "technicality" and I highly doubt elf dude was her literal heart come to life. (Parley's chest is glowing due to her "gleaming heart", whatever that is.)

# ¿ Sep 27, 2010 08:18

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

Clearly the way to pacify Jeanne's ghost is to reunite her, somehow, with her lover. I bet his soul is still where his remains are, so ...

# ¿ Sep 30, 2010 12:00

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

Idran posted:

It probably helps Tea-San curb that temptation that he keeps a constant buffer of something like two weeks of comics in advance.

Three months of comics done ahead, two weeks uploaded ahead, iirc.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2010 19:07

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

This means Annie's dad is turning up soon.

Personally? I can't wait.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2010 12:32

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

Annie is emotionally closed-off and prone to bottling things up. She's also a teenager. When those two collide, outbursts happen.

And Reynardine was being a presumptuous, possessive dick.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2010 12:00

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

Calling it now, the "fire" was her literal soul. Annie is a sort of ... reincarnation of her mother.

Also it was a court experiment, since Surma was too great a medium to lose. I suspect she was already gravely ill before Annie was born.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2010 11:24

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

Fecha posted:

The implications of this soul-stealing being hereditary are that Mr. Carver agreed to get her pregnant anyways, and Surma went through with it... why? Was there some particular need for Annie?

Maybe Surma was already dying before Annie was conceived. Or maybe she really, really wanted a child?

# ¿ Nov 29, 2010 21:51

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

She could be the eye of Odin, you know. Or one of his seeing-eye ravens.

# ¿ Dec 24, 2010 16:57

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

I'm reasonably sure Jones is one of Odin's ravens. She's heavy because she's literally thought (or memory) made flesh. Thought/memory of a god.

# ¿ Dec 25, 2010 01:40

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

If Jones were Coyote's eye, she would not be a neutral party to the Forest and the Court.

I'm not gonna defend the Odin's thought/memory idea, since it's possible she's just a golem. :V

# ¿ Dec 25, 2010 03:18

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

Psych posted:

I suppose I'm the only one here who is disappointed, to see Coyote once again claiming to have known everything yet have done nothing about it. Since he's been introduced Coyote has done anything that justifies his reputation as this big scary deity that the Court is so worried about. For a trickster god he sure is boring.

Uh.

Do you know what a trickster god is? They're supposed to be shortsighted, vain, boastful, impatient and bright in short bursts at the exactly wrong time. They aren't -- Br'r Rabbit and thus possibly Anansi being somewhat of an exception -- supposed to be anything but a laughing stock.

A trickster god is a creator god's opposite -- they tend to have the same sort of powers but they're just ... not even bad at using them or stupid per se but terrible at everything due to shortsightedness.

So you know. He's not a big scary deity. He's a chump bomb that could go off at any moment due to his own half-baked ~*nefarious plans*~.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2010 20:55

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

He'd probably seriously gently caress it up or set himself up for future spectacular failure, because that's how trickster god stories go, usually.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2010 21:06

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

Wong Dongson posted:

It should be mentioned at this point that in some native cultures, Coyote isn't a trickster god. He's God. The Creator, the big cheese. Not for fakesies, not by mistake, but he's actual the force that set everything into motion. He's also sometimes a cultural hero as they call them, who is less 'animal' and more 'dude that does cool poo poo for the people'. And even when he's a trickster, sometimes he's a prick. Not an incompetent prick either, a really competent prick that is super good at making people miserable.

Of course sometimes he's just a minor spirit that pranks folks too, or has to do scut work.

Yeah, okay, that's true. There are a billion Coyote stories, so.

Though from the way Coyote's been presented in the comic and the stories we've been told (him loving up making his own people and him stealing the moon to spy on people, only to be kicked out for being a dick), it seems we're going with Trickster Coyote and not Great Creator Coyote.

Also, this counts as a reply to Fangz too. Tom is the writer. Tom decides which Coyote to present. It seems we're getting the trickster version.

# ¿ Dec 30, 2010 07:05

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

Annie seems to regard him as being powerful and knowledgeable, but I don't think she's scared of him at all.

If she were scared of him, she would not have run to him for comfort and information, after all.

I just don't buy some people's insistence that Coyote is the Joker.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2010 15:10

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

Surma looks so much like Annie that this is a very, very foolish question to ask, imo

# ¿ Jan 1, 2011 00:06

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

Just popping in to offer my congratulations and support -- you deserve nothing but the best of luck with this, Tea-san.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2012 15:04

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

idonotlikepeas posted:

Well, Tom hasn't fully explained that yet, and I'm not sure how much he'll ever get into it, but we do know a few things:

1. She is in some measure or to some degree a human being. She is not literally a demon or an otherworldly monster.
2. She has magical delusions that alter the way she sees reality. In extreme cases, she can bring people into the altered versions of reality with her, and the delusions can have lasting effects.
3. There are intelligences which exist in her altered reality, some of which want to escape.
4. The altered states of reality are not precisely bound by her current time - she may see representations of past or future events.
5. She cannot control these abilities to any great degree, only suppress them through some effort of will.
6. Gamma (and to a lesser degree Annie) can cancel out the delusions as long as they aren't fooled by them.
7. When it rains, the ethereal energy (more unanswered questions there) temporarily allows her relief from her abilities.
8. Being in a library offers some degree of protection as well.
9. Zimmy and Gamma can communicate with each other telepathically. They don't actually speak a common language.
10. The horrible mental landscape she goes to is a nightmare version of Birmingham. She's said she'll die there one day.
11. She can tell when she is being watched, and hates it.
12. The black crust around her eyes is mostly symbolic rather than literal.

Things that aren't totally clear:

1. Do the delusions have true physical effects, or are they purely mental/magical constructs?
2. What do libraries have in common with rain and Gamma and Annie?
3. Why are so many of the negative things seemingly associated with spiders?
4. Where do these abilities come from?
5. What will happen with them long term? Is she getting worse or better?

There's probably more stuff, too; I imagine other people have other perspectives on this.

My theory is that Zimmy suffered something really awful in Birmingham, probably somehow related to the etheric energies and it's gotten her somehow ... mentally stuck in Birmingham. Like it's magic PTSD and her altered reality is like a flashback.

I dunno, Zimmy's general demeanour screams "serious trauma" to me.

That or I'm massively projecting my own issues onto an elemental-descendent/demonic teenager. :v:

Tea-san posted:

This is it. I hope this first week goes well.

Oh, Zim and Gams are back in the next chapter.

Best of luck! You deserve it so much.

Also, good. They're my favourites.

EDIT: The donation wallpaper is gorgeous, but is there any chance of getting one in 1680 x 1050? :shobon:

I realise that's probably not a common resolution, so it's cool if I don't get it, I'll just use one of the larger ones.

weavernaut fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Mar 19, 2012

# ¿ Mar 19, 2012 15:00

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

Tubgirl Cosplay posted:

Where'd you get the Birmingham thing from? I assumed because of Gamma she was retrieved in Poland, and just happens to speak English because she also knows it/is a creepy magical demon child

I think one of the statues in Zimmy's nightmare zone was from Birmingham and I just assumed that yeah, that place is a nightmare Birmingham.

In any case, Zimmy strikes me as British. :shobon:

I assumed she had met Gamma in Britain. Polish and other Eastern Bloc immigrants are pretty common on the British Isles, so.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2012 19:16

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

DaveWoo posted:

So obvious, it makes me wonder why Annie's mother/grandmother/etc never thought of it...

Adoption in the modern sense -- adopting a young child or an infant -- is a fairly new concept. Prior to something ridiculous like the 1950s, adoption was a thing done if you had no heirs and then it was almost always of an adult.

If I recall correctly.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2012 19:27

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

Deus ex machina typically refers to endings, though.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2012 20:47

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

But if it's been established as a portal-maker and containment unit, as well as a magic/technology hybrid, it's not a deus ex machina -- the other condition is that it comes out of the left field, with no foreshadowing and (sometimes, I guess) without a trail of red herrings to distract people from the foreshadowing.

I mean, it's pretty clear that this chapter is establishing what the computer can do, aside from hold Reynardine -- and teleportation has already turned up in the comic twice, once with Annie's blinker stone and once with Parley's powers.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2012 20:52

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

I don't see why that'd be a problem -- the Court can build robots (sentient ones with personalities! No mean feat!) and the Forest has its shadow people, which are both variations on a theme: almost human, but not quite.

The Court and the Forest have always been presented as on equal footing, if not actually two sides of the same coin. It's unsurprising the Court has technology that can match magic.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2012 22:02

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

But it hasn't progressed to that point and shows no sign of doing so. You're just freaking out over a distant possibility.

Are you going to complain about Coyote next? He can do a lot more than teleport things and bring up a holographic screen.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2012 22:06

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

The Court has a machine that can rival the Forest's power, who, incidentally, have literal gods on their side.

I don't see the problem.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2012 22:44

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

Stop it, everyone, logic clearly has no place in this thread!!

# ¿ Mar 30, 2012 22:57

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 06:40

weavernaut: Sep 12, 2007; i'm so glad to have made such an interesting new friend

I think it's very likely the computer only has admin accounts for Anja and Donny, too.

I mean, why would they let anyone else play with their shiny magic/technology hybrid, really? It's their project and the other adults are plenty magical themselves.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2012 23:01

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > BSS: Bisexual Super Son > Gunnerkrigg Court: would you still "oh, robot" me if i was a worm