Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

WCDT January 9-13, 2012 (2096-2100)

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jwhouk:
Why didn't he call her back and say something?

Because he didn't want to hear her say the two words she probably would have said.

First word starts with an f, and the second is "you".

Arrgh:

--- Quote from: AnAverageWriter on 14 Jan 2012, 13:49 ---
--- Quote from: Omega Entity on 14 Jan 2012, 13:24 ---I don't know about these guys, but there have been times where behaviors I've had only get the desired result for so long. After a while, my friends got sick of it, and pretty much gave me a verbal (and necessary) bitch-slap, much as Faye has done to Marten.

--- End quote ---

I hope I never encounter any of your friends. Anyone who would consider "You are an asshole" as an appropriate friend response to just about ANYTHING needs some serious mental therapy. Marten may have done something socially uncomfortable or whatnot, but after all this time, after everything in every strip, to suddenly start labelling him is just disgusting.

She didn't say something like "What you did is assholeish". She did not delineate behavior.

She simply called him a name, one that doesn't even come close to accurately describing him. That was neither necessary, nor is it helpful in the slightest.

At all.

Talking about behavior can help a person to recognize their behavior and work through it. Talking about behavior shows friendship.
Calling people names has the opposite effect- in the real world it oftentimes creates defensiveness, causing the labelled person to pull inside themselves. It's also a good way for the "friend" doing the name-calling to end up getting punched in the face.

--- End quote ---
This happened in the same comic strip where she just called Martin a "buttass" as a term of endearment. So I don't think she's exactly being literal; she's calling out his behavior by using the same words he just used to describe himself, only not sarcastically. It's a bit more poetic that way.

WAYF:
FrozenPeas, I'm sure you are welcome to make two posts in a row when they are so brilliantly written. Although once again I don't entirely agree with you (just mostly agree).
I think that Marten has experienced some growth since #1800, but I think we're forgetting that this is QC time. I've only been around since #1804, but I can tell from the archives that it took a loooooooong time for Faye to get from "If I sense any lusting, I will stab you" to managing to say that she loved someone. And then only meaning it in retrospect. My theory is that we expect character development to happen more quickly than it does because the days pass much more quickly for us than for them. I'm going to give a rough estimate of... let's say 3-4 months since Marten and Dora broke up, probably not even that. Time skips are pretty tricky things to judge. The point is, you're right about Marten only being calm as long as things are going well for him, but he was like that in the lead up to #1800, and it's fairly unreasonable for us to expect him to change that aspect of himself so quickly.

I also think that your haircut comment might be a bad example in this case, if only because Padma's actions likely had a much more serious effect on Marten than they should have. We can only really imagine how heartbroken he was by Vicky breaking up with him (although he was angry enough to be gratified when Faye assaulted her with a carton of milk), and it's quite likely that this scenario brought up some painful memories of that time. It isn't really anybody's fault that Marten's memory (I'm assuming here) made that association, but it probably made him even more bitter than he already was, and that's why he acted so harshly.

So in summary, you're right about Marten's behaviour when things are/aren't going his way, but his character shouldn't be expected to grow that quickly, and this was likely a lot more serious for him than a minor obstacle.

truestatic:

--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 14 Jan 2012, 14:32 ---If Padma was busy moving, why didn't she invite Marten to help her pack?
--- End quote ---
Because the suggestion that her failure to call him was an accidental omission in her week long frenzy of packing was a bald faced lie, used to avoid openly admitting the more painful truth; she'd been avoiding him.
--- Quote from: Arrgh on 14 Jan 2012, 15:13 ---This happened in the same comic strip where she just called Martin a "buttass" as a term of endearment. So I don't think she's exactly being literal; she's calling out his behavior by using the same words he just used to describe himself, only not sarcastically. It's a bit more poetic that way.

--- End quote ---
Faye's terms of endearment for Marten are pretty indelicate, but they're also warm.  "You are an asshole!" conveyed absolutely no warmth, to me, though tone can be difficult to convey in comics.

Milesb:
I found Marten's face portraying such anger and resentment as a likely indicator that Faye's tone was rather sharp, personally.

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