Gunnerkrigg Court

>Rolleyes.
gunnerkrigg.com/

Tony a qt.

knowing what we know now about tony, surma's reaction seems kinda mean :( he genuinely doesn't know what to say or do

Surma is a bitch

>thinking about dicks

I can only imagine that she, like 99.6% of everyone Anthony has ever met, doesn't "understand" him yet

It seems the idea of this chapter (at least in part) is meant to show us how that hurdle was crossed (at least in part) and she would eventually come to choose him over Eggy

considering that she and anja seem much younger here than they did in the S1 flashback, maybe this will be a series of flashbacks showing the growth of their relationship?

>U
What did.. what did he do wrong here, actually? He just politely agreed?

He said what he's supposed to say in this situation, but he doesn't actually mean it, he has no empathy.

>Missing the point of Tony's character this badly.

He means it but he just can't communicate it.

he didn't do anything WRONG, he's just being awkward and probably making the situation more uncomfortable unnecessarily. that's probably why surma is rolling her eyes, because she doesn't think he's being genuine and/or he's being awkward about it.

fwiw i think at this point her opinion of him is largely influenced by eglamore

Non-native English speakers might miss on this. There's nothing wrong with what he said, but the way he talks would be considered unnatural, it's very stilted language, and his stiff posture and blank expression give off a sense of detachment.

The way he reaches out but then stops shows that he wants to comfort his friends but he really doesn't know how.

anja is so cute

Bear in mind that this probably wasn't long after Brinnie, so Surma is probably fed up of Tony being like this all the time.

I want to cum in Surma's hair

See the bottom three panels.

He reaches out and goes to move forward, probably in an attempt to comfort Anja and Don.
Then he stops and reverts back to his previous posture, probably because he feels too self-conscious and doesn't quite know how to do it without coming across as weird or overly familiar. Through not wishing to be awkward, he is being awkward.
This is clearly common enough that Surma can't help but roll her eyes at it. Even when a friend of his has lost a loved one, he can't even get over himself long enough to try and comfort his friend.

>mockingly roll eyes at an autist being autistic
>15 years later, rolling eyes back into head as you knowingly let yourself die on said autist's deadly dick
Funny how things worked out, Surma.

Tom is truly a poet.

Can't wait to see all the enraged comments from people convinced Tony is a monster and Tom shouldn't be getting people to sympathize with him

People don't really seem to realize Annie is more like him than Surma

20 years of awkward almost body contact

I need to go back and reread these scenes, because knowing more about what we know about him now, it's easier to read him as more comedic and buffonish than he initially looks. Though we got a glimpse of it earlier, with the thing about the friend trying to get him to date her.

>almost everyone in the series hates Tony including the fans
>he's just a sad autist who doesn't understand how to talk to people and show that he cares

...

I'd ask for bets that Surma goes on this trip or whatever it is instead of Donald, but it's such a sucker bet that it doesn't seem right. Surma probably goes with him to resolve this issue, and then Tony is stuck having to deal with someone without any real excuses to fuck off or run away and without his one friend to help him out.

>attempt to comfort
>give up immediately

I need more Tony trying and failing at showing emotions in my life.

Eh I'm not reading too much into it. We know from Rey's flashback she can be way more mean/hurtful.

Shit we need an edit of that strip except the end has to have a the fire vaguely in the shape of a woman and giving him a blowjob

it's really well paced. the dinner with the donlan's and the drunken convo between tony and donny are so dynamic, rereading i feel like i have a much better feel for all these characters

that's his every appearance so far, though

well, excepting when Donny's around.

The thing I'm baffled about is why Kat likes him now. Kat is stupidly outgoing and brash and Tony doesn't really understand how to talk to people at all.

I think everyone who has a brain knows Tony is a well-meaning person but Kat doing a 180 on him is so weird I'm not surprised that Annie is confused. And him not knowing how to talk to Annie makes sense since how the fuck does a man this awkward talk to his child.

Yes. But I still need more.

Does Anja even like Tony? Donny is the only character that seems to understand him at all. I guess maybe Kat inherited that ability.

That has to be the point, really. For most people, what it looked like for Surma and Tony is just, one day, they're in fucking love. What the fuck is that? With Kat and Tony, all of a sudden they're laughing together. Kat will probably try to explain the circumstances to Annie, and it was probably something like them bonding over tech stuff.

Donnie, Tony and Kat are eggheads. That commonality they find through work is what allows Tony to express himself.

Which goes to further explain why that connection is non existent in his interactions with Annie.

She is too much a child of the forest.

Like most socially anxious people, he's able to put aside some of that anxiety when dealing with people on a one-to-one level. Not fully but enough to make a few jokes, enough to come across as quirky and complex rather than just an outright asshole.

So a few days of interaction with Kat was, in all likelihood, enough to break the ice and reveal that he's a decent guy.

Imagine how different things could have been if Tony had some guidance.

>rolleyes
Is Surma even worse than Annie?

Tony is so pretty. I wish his face wasn't fucked up in the present.

Is Tony legitimately autistic or is he just THAT socially anxious?

It's a good thing he had the sad glasses on hand for just such an occasion.

My best friend is in deep emotional pain but this loser is being an autist about trying to show genuine concern?
>rolleyes.jpg

Surma is awful.

>Praising a kid for a B
>Good parenting
Sure, if you want your kid to be a narcissist.

Yeah, but we already knew she was awful. I give Tom a lot of credit for showing most characters to be flawed or have negative aspects though, the Dolans and Mort have been pretty much the only virtuous characters.

Well, the donlans might have some skeletons in their closet vis a vis ungodly creations of science.
And Mort just didn't live long enough to make mistakes.

Tony is trying when his best friends are in real pain. Not exactly the right time to be annoyed with his awkwardness Surma, even if he should just "get over it". The guy really wants to comfort his friends but is just incredibly autistic.

Like seriously, rolling your eyes? This isn't the fucking moment to roll your damn eyes and be annoyed at Tony, you should be trying to comfort them too.

Surma's far more compelling as a flawed character because so many people in the damn comic put her on a pedestal and it has really fucked Annie up.

But in the end, getting dicked to death made her a better person.
Annie should just put a baby in that blast furnace already.

Tony was always a funny guy, he just only seems to show it to Donny, (presumably) Surma, and (assumedly) now Kat.

I tried to laugh with my friends about this page but they were too mad about Tony "abusing" Annie at the time and likely still wouldn't see the humor in this.

But it's funny as fuck.

Are you sure that was Tony being funny, tho? Or was it Tom? Cuz for all we know he really did spend a week trying to feng shui that chair.

I more sort of meant, that we see Tony saying all of this blunt, sometimes pretty rude shit. But with the larger context we realize he doesn't really mean anything by it, it's just the only way we really knows how to communicate with people in day to day life. So lines like him just apologizing for his daughter's cheating off Kat becomes, instead of him humiliating his daughter, him desperately trying to apologize to his life long friends because he thinks it's some great sin he must atone for. His day to day actions take on the quality of Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh. This stoic, reserved person people make all these assumptions about, but he's really just kind of a doofus who doesn't know how to properly engage with people on a normal emotional level. It's all freezing cold and burning hot with this guy. Like Eglamore complained once:

>Jeez, who talks like that?
Tony, that's who. Because he's still this bottled up, anxious fucking teenager. Obviously this has had serious consequences for his daughter's upbringing and their relationship, but it's worth bringing up her defensiveness earlier in the story and the flashback we got of them during what I guess was a sparring session. There is a relationship there that, presumably, was a bit closer before her mother died. Both Annie and Tony are suffering deeply from her death, but neither is emotionally open enough to be able to engage each other in the bonding and healing process they should be undergoing as the survivors of the family. Annie doesn't hate her dad, but he's an incredibly frustrating person to be close to and to have as your only living relative and father.

It following Tony's "get that in my house" and Kat very openly laughing with him and outright telling Annie he's funny makes the joke in Tony's character I think.

For sure. Kat probably realized Tony was just awkward and stand-offish but actually a cool person on the inside like her bff Annie

Gotta be a joke, Tony's all smiles and hahas once he gets a little drink in him.

eglamore's kind of a faggot desu

Annie and Tony are extremely alike in their personality, demeanor, and neuroses, it's good characterization. Annie's quite a bit better in groups than Tony is but overall they're pretty similar

She has only one relative alive at most. Why would she understand? From her perspective they're the family equivalent of rich rich people being sad that they lost a dollar in front of the homeless.

>like her bff Annie
lmftfy
>unlike Annie

My dad and my friend are both autistic, and both become way more funny and easier to get along with and talk to once they're a little bit drunk.

The characterization is great, even how they interact with their friends have parallels

...

Remember how all her classmates disliked or didn't care for Annie for being a socially awkward weirdo with stilted speech and no sense of humour? How she only ever opened up to Kat?

Tony's the same, except he never grew out of it.

Oh please, A B is still technically above average and not necessarily easy to reach depending on how your region/country/teacher scales performance, a B in one school could be a A in another, and im saying that from experience. not to mention and if your kid has been in D-F(ail) hell in the subject before this you bet your ass he/she deserves praise for improving.

It is all about context. And you would probably be surprised how many parents don't bother praising for As either.

I dunno, Tony is autistic, but Annie becomes a fullblown monster when she snaps, can't take what she dishes out though.

When Annie acts headstrong and lashes out emotionally, she's clearly channeling her mother. It's her more reserved, logical reactions to things, as Coyote points out, that come from her father. In the end, they're too similar in their emotional distance to people when it comes to having to deal with each other. Both need a close bond with the other, but neither understands how to start it or even contemplate it.

Holy hell, I'd actually forgotten how cruel Annie can be.

The ol fire spirit is a bitch to try and control

Annie went too far but Renard did need his shit slapped quite a bit to get to a place like he is when he kills Hetty. If nothing else that chapter helps drive home how cruel Surma can be. I think Annie gets that from her.

I'm hoping though that this chapter shows that she dumped Eglamore because he was an ass, not because Surma had a whim. It'd help slow the roll of knocking Surma down from the pedestal everyone puts her on and leveling her out. Almost every character is burdened by flaws, it would be nice to see James exposed as a petty angry person.

Pretty much my thoughts on him too. People rant about the 'abuse' he gave Annie but don't stop to think that he just came back home to find his daughter has cheated years of coursework, fooled around with ethereal beings that have nearly kill her more than once and is wearing his dead wife's makeup.

Of course he's going to put an immediate stop to all of that until he knows Annie is safe. He risked his own life by stepping up to a raging Coyote to ensure her safety and gave Annie back her forest and Rey privileges right away.

It's just a shame that Tom put all this work into a misunderstood character and people are actually complaining to Tom because they want Tony to remain a flat trope.

>audience misunderstands misunderstood character
Pottery.

The court also came to him after he was a broken man tricked into almost killing his daughter and told him they were going to expel Annie if he didn't come back and make her retake a year. He's cold to her because 1 he's an autist and 2 the court watches everything and he likely can't be completely open with her even if he wanted to

Annie cheating rampantly off of Kat was a plot point left alone for fucking years, it boggles my mind that people were angry she was heavily punished for it and blamed it all on him, and now complain to Tom about writing Tony as a sympathetic character because it would "excuse his abuse"

Well, misunderstood from the perspective of the characters we see. We had years thinking he intentionally put Annie in a coma to do some sort of evil ether surgery on her. Now we know he was tricked by psychopomps into doing it.

Audience's reaction to this news? "Tom stop writing him that way! You abuse apologist!"

That is how you can tell he is a well written character.

She is also Cray-Cray.

>tfw no gunnerkrigg anime by trigger

I think it's less him being a reasonable man, though Ysengrin agreeing with him was a pretty amusing scene, but Tony being Tony. There were better ways to handle trying to rein in Annie's increasingly out of control life, but Tony doesn't know how to do that. He operates on a different paradigm. You bluntly talk about your daughter cheating. You immediately tell her to take her make up off in class because you still can't deal with her mother's death. You take her friend away because you remember what a danger he was when you were around, but without talking to Annie about it. As soon as Annie confronts him to ask him to release Renard, he immediately does so, in one of the best bits in the entire comic. He just does these things and only thinks to offer an explanation when prodded.

Tony's problem is he doesn't know how to negotiate the delicate balance of social situations and doing the right thing. He blunders through, smashing everything because he's just trying to do the right thing, right? Doesn't know how to deal with a girl propositioning him when his own emotions are unclear. So he deflects stoically, rather than commit to a relationship he's uncertain of or dismiss a friend, even though his action does more harm to her than either other outcome. What he does to Annie isn't really abuse, it's just bad parenting brought upon by his inability to comprehend how his actions affect others emotionally.

It would be western animation, so it's a choice between ToonBoom/Flash puppetry or CGI.

Actually thinking about it, Tom did say he'd rather see Gunnerkrigg be adapted for a video game. I could see Telltale work with that.

>You get Gunnerkrigg Anime
>It isn't by trigger
>It is by Satelight
>Gunnerkrigg is now a Musical
>and gets as much budget as Symphogears first season

Very true. A lot of times it feels like he needs help in these matters but nobody seems to bother and just criticises him from a distance instead. Donny's been the only guidance he's had in a while.

On the subject of abuse, we should go back to when Tony first showed up proper in the present. He didn't make a good impression. A lot of his actions are a lot more assholish seeming than any other in the comic. In particular him leaving Annie to stew as to why she doesn't have a book and them brutally telling her to mind her own business when she's worried about his hand. With hindsight, one might posit the book was because he didn't want to call her out as a cheat in front of the class and the hand thing is obviously because he can't possibly bring himself to tell her the truth.

But how it comes across is pretty bad, which is the point and why Tony is little liked both in and out of comic. When ever he needs to take an action to address something, he does it without understanding the other concerns he should be keeping in mind. He's also the adult here, whatever problems he otherwise has. So he becomes a tragic character because it is his responsibility to be better when he is incapable of being so. As her father, he's really been failing Annie in their time of crisis and in helping her overcome her own problems because it seems he never really got through his own.

forgot to post the relevant page

Man, rereading this chapter is an adventure after all we've gotten since then. How Annie acts here? This must be how Tony is all the damn time.

Oh hey look, what a subtle transition to a conversation I'm sure cannot be directly applied a relationship Annie has.

it definitely applies but sometimes i find it tough to trust ysengrin's advice because he's literally insane and coyote alters his memories

Seeing how Annie was the one who cute her hair in a nervous breakdown, that card does sound pretty terrible. It's like going to a suicide survivor and mocking the scars on their wrists.

Obviously his advice is a problem, but it's more what he describes here that matter. Annie hates her dad sometimes, but she still loves him. With Ysengrin, Coyote actually is abusive, cruelly manipulating him for his own ends. Perhaps not entirely maliciously, but certainly without overwhelming care. Tony meanwhile is simply incompetent as a father, rather than manipulative.

There is that too, yes. Annie doesn't understand their sentiment because of her own perspective, but is also unwilling to share that perspective with others. Leaving her looking like even more of an autist than she really is.

>Coyote is the only one who can see how Tony's mind works aside from Donnie

He's also a shitty father, though.

There's a jellyfish inside Tony's mind??

>Surgically removed his own hand just to see his wife
>Realised it was his daughter just before Zimmy punched out cold
>Was half dead when the Court picked him up and made him return under threat of ruining his daughter's life
>Already on the edge of a mental breakdown and forced to face the daughter he failed in a crowded classroom.
>Turns around, finds her wearing his wife's make up and says something he instantly regrets.

>Mc-Psychology-Expert in his desk chair, scoffing down a bag of doritos: "Yeah no. He should have been completely rational because being an adult and/or parent means you're not human anymore and make no mistakes, ever."

i like that coyote just casually destroys a skyscraper in this chapter

i wonder if he's going to get away with his bullshit forever. probably

>they were too mad about Tony "abusing" Annie
Granted he DID keep her in a fucking white walled isolation tank away from her friends. He may not have known what effect that would have in her but he damn well did it. He can be a complex and "good" guy while still being psychologically abusive and damaging to Annie. I like how Tom writes him

Antimony was being grounded for years of cheating. Granted most of these people scream "abuse!" when they're told to do chores or refused money for something.

Most people aren't sent to a sterile white room in an underground bunker when they're grounded, user. I don't know that we know the exact circumstances of why that place in particular is where is went, though. She may have even wanted it herself right then, given her bizarre state of mind. But still, not the best kind of environment to overcome mental trauma.

Very strange, seeing how relatable Tony is.

I don't know, I like him a lot. He feels one of the most unique characters in this comic, almost as if he was a real person instead of just a charcter.

Tony is a nerdy autist with a limited set of friends and incapable of understanding or appreciating the social lives of the majority of humanity that themselves cannot appreciate his social troubles and hates him for it. There's a fairly small, very specific subset of the internet population that finds that relatable.

Judging from Tony's own house, he probably thinks it helps one concentrate on work, which is something Annie desperately needed to catch up.

>Doritos
This is CHEETO country, motherfuckers!

Subtlety is a dead. If a character isn't one-note and flatter than a sheet of paper, audiences will only get confused and angry.

It's always been like this you fucking special snowflake. Complex characters have always been controversial.

I was going to say 'Wotsits' (same thing?) but I didn't think enough people would know them.

Then why is "so complex" the go-to phrase of praise so ubiquitous among the casual public? People like complex characters, except not really?

Because complex means complicated and complicated means "REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE DUMB IT DOWN FOR ME YOU PRETENTIOUS DOUCHE"

Complex characters are by definition difficult to understand. In some cases that may lead to them being misunderstood, making the audience confused and angry.
That's deliberate. Tony's reintroduction has been purposefully written in a way that makes him look like a fucking monster while it's gradually being revealed that he's actually just a conflicted person.
Before his return, we only heard negative stuff about Tony. We even saw him putting her in a coma. Then he returns and starts treating Annie like shit. Not only that, but we've also had characters subjectively influencing the readership on Tony's character:
We've had Eglamore, who openly talked about what a horrible person Tony is. We've had Annie, who blindly trusted him (until now), but at the same time showing clear signs of mental abuse. She was suffering a huge mental breakdown, and Tom deliberately wrote that as if everything came from Tony. For example, he made it look as if Annie cut her hair because Tony forced her. Turns out most of it came from Annie, but the readership doesn't believe her (just like other characters, like Kat) because the rest of the comic is constantly telling us Annie is being abused.
We've had Donnie, who is the person who knows Tony the most and despite showing Annie the reason behind Tony's behavior he still tells her that it doesn't justify how he's acting towards her.
With all that, It's not so crazy to expect that some readers will choose to read Tony in a very negative light, while others will understand Tony and will appreciate his arc. That makes Tony a polarizing character, and the thing with polarizing characters is that they're not liked by everybody.

And it's always been like this, in every piece of storytelling. Subtlety isn't dead. If anything, I think these reactions are sort of necessary to make characters like him shine.

Also, because people know in a theoretical level that "complex = good" (not that I agree with that) but they don't actually appreciate it because they lack the ability to do so, so when they label something as "so complex!" to praise it 1) it's probably not that complex and 2) they're being hypocritical and they're just pretending to like complexity because they're supposed to.