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Dora

4 (5.4%)

Sven

1 (1.4%)

Faye

4 (5.4%)

Tai

3 (4.1%)

Marigold

12 (16.2%)

Hanners

10 (13.5%)

Mieville

1 (1.4%)

Raven

3 (4.1%)

Veronica

1 (1.4%)

Jimbo

1 (1.4%)

Jim

0 (0%)

Padma

0 (0%)

Princess (Sven's cat)

1 (1.4%)

Pintsize

0 (0%)

Yelling Bird

1 (1.4%)

Shame Orb

1 (1.4%)

Harriet

3 (4.1%)

Turkeys (male)

1 (1.4%)

Turkeys (female)

0 (0%)

Other (specify)

2 (2.7%)

OK, Fine, Claire

3 (4.1%)

Oops, forgot Marten

5 (6.8%)

And Momo

11 (14.9%)

Let alone Emily!

6 (8.1%)

Total Members Voted: 69

[Masterpiece]

She also seems to be missing the strand of hair that always frames her face.

yup, definitely gone for good. Shame.

It could be just playing with the artstyle rather than a actual haircut so it could pop up again.

I like the new look though. Looks a bit messier, but in a cute way, and it frames her face nicely.

but, they were SO FLUFFY

[Rghfrgl]

Claire may have figured out that Marten is about as dangerous as a stuffed manatee on codeine.

I think you're giving Marten a little too much credit... not that he doesn't try to put his noodle spine up once in awhile as a very wimpy Prince Valiant.

I cannot imagine Marten hurting a friend.

I think he meant that a stuffed manatee is considerably more dangerous than Marten.

[GarandMarine]

I did. I mean it could fall on somebody! Those things are heavy!

[mtmerrick]

I thought this was the pets thread for a second. And I was thinking - for only a split second, mind you - that someone had a stuffed pet manatee. And my brain was ALL sorts of confused. 

[Akima]

Women are constantly told (often by men) to avoid "dangerous" situations, such as parties, or cities, or subways, or really anywhere you might go outside of your home. If something happens to a woman who happens to be in one of these situations people often act as though she deserves part of the blame for what happened to her because she willingly went to a party and decided to drink.

Very true, and there is a tricky fine line between the impulse that decent men feel to protect women, and patriarchal systems using fear to control women, and restrict them to smaller lives than men's. There are many risk factors that all women have to consider, including trans-women.

[ZoeB]

That being said, Clinton is way over-reacting in this case. Perhaps understandably - sure, he's just worried about his sister and a guy he doesn't know too well yet - but we all know that Marten is the last guy who would even think about abusing Claire.

Yes, obviously.
We know Marten - Clinton doesn't.
I really like Clinton - he's rather sweet. Even if he needs to learn a little about boundaries, and lets his inner Geek violate them too much. The kind of thing I might well do myself, if I'm not careful.
He cares for his sister.

Everything everyone's said about Clinton having had to get used to his sister's transition is true. As is the fact that Bad Stuff(tm) has happened to girls who get drunk at parties, when in the wrong company. Drunk - or drugged. Can happen to anyone.

It happened to me. LSD-25 in the non-alcoholic punch.

[ZoeB]

Presumably if Claire was to start seeing somebody seriously, the danger would be that Clinton would slip into full-blown Victorian patriarch mode and storm off to confront the person, to demand to know if their "intentions were honourable."

I think that's guaranteed!

But you know what? I pity any predatory female who latches onto Clinton and mistreats him... Claire would rip her to shreds. I can see her having a serious talk with any G/F of his, just to make sure she won't break his heart un-necessarily. Clinton's life can't have been easy, think about it, he had a hand blown off as a child in a fireworks accident. His social skills need honing.

(must resist urge to ship Hanners.... though worse things could happen)

[westrim]

They both have really large, round glasses, though she has thicker frames. I wonder why Jeph went with them, style, or ease of drawing (don't get in the way of eyes and such)?

[mtmerrick]

Presumably if Claire was to start seeing somebody seriously, the danger would be that Clinton would slip into full-blown Victorian patriarch mode and storm off to confront the person, to demand to know if their "intentions were honourable."

I think that's guaranteed!

But you know what? I pity any predatory female who latches onto Clinton and mistreats him... Claire would rip her to shreds. I can see her having a serious talk with any G/F of his, just to make sure she won't break his heart un-necessarily. Clinton's life can't have been easy, think about it, he had a hand blown off as a child in a fireworks accident. His social skills need honing.

Even though Claire is (now) his sister, i think she'll always have that "big brother" mentality about Clinton

[Valdís]

Even though Claire is (now) his sister, i think she'll always have that "big brother" mentality about Clinton

She always was, Clinton just didn't know it yet, and I do believe you mean "Big sister" mentality. Familial love isn't just fraternal.

[henri bemis]

Yup.  One of my sisters (two years younger) gets protective of me as often as I do of her, and we've got two other siblings still in grade school that we both look out for.  We get to be the two badass older sisters.

eta: I admit I got a bit bristled at first when Clinton started on about 'dangerous situations' for the reasons TRVA123 and Akima outlined, but I think Jeph handled it well.  Clinton's reaction was understandable, but problematic, and Claire's response made that pretty clear (at least to me?).

[Kugai]

Cute interlude will end on Friday when Pintsize and Marten's new Guitar fuze with Deathbot

[TheBiscuit]

I really can't stand Clinton. These attempts to give him a more laudable side to his character aren't working on me at all. A day with no strip at all is better than a strip with Clinton in it for me. He's a nasty little creeper who just automatically thinks the worst of anyone who isn't his sister, and then on top of that he has the gall to criticize her when she's probably doing better in life than he is. His sole redeeming quality is that he thinks he's looking out for her best interests, but in the most obnoxious way posible.

[K1dmor]

A day with no strip at all is better than a strip with Clinton in it for me.

But Jeph can write whatever he wants  Even if that's not your cup of tea.

 

and then on top of that he has the gall to criticize her when she's probably doing better in life than he is.

 We don't know that much about his life (just maybe that he have a job as an AI "consultor", or make interviews, surveys, etc).

 

He's a nasty little creeper who just automatically thinks the worst of anyone who isn't his sister,

After what their father did to them, i bet his hope in humanity was almost lost; and he doesn't wanna see Claire suffering like (i guess) her mother have to.

[Bluesummers]

We don't know that much about his life (just maybe that he have a job as an AI "consultor", or make interviews, surveys, etc).

And that he has terrible taste in swimwear.

[Method of Madness]

And that he has ideally hydrodynamic taste in swimwear.

[candlejack]

Hehe CSI: Murderfuck.

[GarandMarine]

Wow! Clinton makes me look not paranoid! That's freaking impressive!

[Is it cold in here?]

Claire has obviously given this a lot of thought.

Does Clinton really worry about bus drivers, or was that just a way of teasing his sister? I've never had a sister but I gather you're supposed to tease them.

[K1dmor]

 Maybe he's not used to the idea that her sister is a grown up now?

[Loki]

I had to look up muniphobia. Apparently, it's "fear of public transportation", although it might be that it's just fear of using public transportation?

Also, it's a song by a band called Cobra Skulls.

[mtmerrick]

Does Clinton really worry about bus drivers, or was that just a way of teasing his sister?

I see it more like this:

I've never had a sister but I gather you're supposed to tease them

YES 

Also, props to Claire for even knowing a word like muniphobia

[Radical AC]

Artist Request:

Jeph needs to make an alternative last panel that ends like Mean Girls.

[TimO]

Yup.  One of my sisters (two years younger) gets protective of me as often as I do of her ...

I've got in trouble with my little sister, and my ex-wife, when I made some throw away comment on Twitter about being a bit hypo before I cycled home, and then not tweeting immediately when I got home, that I was OK!

I could kind of understand it, but I've lived by myself for longer than I lived at home as a child (and young adult), and I've been divorced for more than a decade!

I think familial protection goes on, regardless of age, relative age, gender, actual relation, and real necessity.

[ZoeB]

I've never had a sister but I gather you're supposed to tease them.

No, they're supposed to tease you. Boys are eminently suitable for teasing. Brothers doubly so.

[ZoeB]

I think familial protection goes on, regardless of age, relative age, gender, actual relation, and real necessity.

+1 Insightful

[pwhodges]

We know Marten - Clinton doesn't.

He does, but only angry Marten - so naturally he would be unsure of him.

[de_la_Nae]

Clinton made a bad first impression.
Then he made a bad second impression.

He's getting better, but it's a normal human thing for first impressions to stick around, as well as last ones. His *only* appearances for a while set him up to be regarded poorly, for the most part. We, being human, do it to fictional characters too. In addition, his actions caused emotional pain to characters we have far more intimacy built up with, and so his negative qualities are amplified. Really, some of them aren't any worse than what more common characters have done, but they get a little bit more of a handwave because they've built up more emotional capital with us.

Reminds me of the episode of Toradora we watched at Anime Club yesterday.

(click to show/hide)

Two of the side character got into a dramatic confrontation over one of them pining over one of the main characters, and this being a show about teens it got a little silly. One of the guys at the club was all "she's pretty stupid", but I told him "They're *all* stupid", because it wasn't any worse than some of the shenanigans and behaviors the main characters had been getting up to for the entire show.

[ZoeB]

Even though Claire is (now) his sister

I know it's been mentioned before... but I think it needs emphasising.

Based on a whole heap of objective anatomical and consequent psychological evidence... not just subjective self-assessments...

Claire has always been his sister. She just didn't always look like it. Understand that, really accept it, you understand everything, it all makes sense, and is all so simple.

Try looking at the situation any other way, there will always be puzzlements and "wha....??" moments,  things that don't jell.

[mtmerrick]

he didn't always consider her his sister, which is what i meant, i guess.

i still get pronouns scrambled sometimes. 

[LordVaughn]

Is it bad that my thought processes sometimes go like the conversations between Claire and Clinton?

[westrim]

I wonder what the new position of the twitter feed means for news posts, and why the flatr button wasn't moved in the process.

[jwhouk]

English is hard enough; you start messing with pronouns and it gets all 

[Valdís]

English is hard enough; you start messing with pronouns and it gets all

Using the right ones is not "Messing with them", though.

[ZoeB]

Using the right ones is not "Messing with them", though.

Yes... but on the other hand, English *is* hard enough. We have things like....

Affect ehFEKT- to change; AFFekt- a person's feelings or emotion
Alternate ALternit- the next choice; ALternait- switch back and forth
Are AHR- plural present tense of "to be"; AIR- 100 square meters (1/100th of a hectare) [although may also be pronounced AHR]
Ares AIRS- 100 square meter units [plural]; AIReez- Greek god of war [capitalized]
Attribute ahTRIByoot- to consider resulting from; AHtribyoot- a characteristic of someone
August AUgust- month [capitalized]; auGUST- important, eminent
Axes AKsiz- more than one ax or axe; AKseez- the plural of axis
Bass BASE- a string instrument; (rhymes with mass)- a fish

etc

So - how many ares are in the field of Ares? To which attribute do we attribute this to?

Not forgetting  "This person - who are they with?", the use of the plural "they" as a singular  gender-neutral pronoun. Much like the German "Sie" for "you (formal)", "she" and "they".

[westrim]

Yes... but on the other hand, English *is* hard enough. We have things like....
 AIR- 100 square meters (1/100th of a hectare) [although may also be pronounced AHR]
Ares AIRS- 100 square meter units [plural]

Your English may have that, but not my English. Which is yet another hardship.

I really can't stand Clinton. These attempts to give him a more laudable side to his character aren't working on me at all. A day with no strip at all is better than a strip with Clinton in it for me. He's a nasty little creeper who just automatically thinks the worst of anyone who isn't his sister, and then on top of that he has the gall to criticize her when she's probably doing better in life than he is. His sole redeeming quality is that he thinks he's looking out for her best interests, but in the most obnoxious way possible.

Pretty sure he didn't think the worst of Hannelore. Or Faye. Or anyone else he's met, at least not to their face.

Personally, I've liked him (as a character, not a person) since he first showed up, since he was at least partially a parody of creepy Hannelore superfans. Now he's outgrown that template, but still interesting enough to avoid the Allosaurus.

Everyone my age knows that the most suitable way to deal with any bully is challenge him to a game, then kill and/or mindrape him when he inevitably loses because you are the King of Games.

But if the bully itself is death, then he becomes a member of your band, and helps as you go on to found a new ideology of peace and rocking out.

I suspect I am close to your age, but I have zealously avoided any and all card-based materials.

Coco Chanel would have been wrong.

Coco Chanel was wrong about a lot of things...

*reads*
*scrolls up*
*scrolls down*
Holy damn, she's just a ball of frowned upon historical positions.

[Valdís]

Yes... but on the other hand, English *is* hard enough. We have things like....

Every language with our system of writing works like this, though, and that's fine. They aren't precisely phonetic nor are they logographic, like Japanese Kana and the imported Kanji respectively, they're just representative. This has its own strengths, as pronunciation changes much more easily than the written word that way. Texts from even a few generations ago could become more or less indecipherable, rendering the purpose of that information transfer dysfunctional. Regional dialects of the same language would also be impossible to standardize. So we have somewhat arbitrary close-approximations, just giving a general idea of a way to say it.

Such as with Icelandic speakers more or less being able to read the Old Norse texts a millennium later.

It also doesn't mean I'm "messing with people" because they have pronoun issues.

[pwhodges]

Texts from even a few generations ago could become more or less indecipherable, rendering the purpose of that information transfer dysfunctional.

I recall being taken round a museum in Kyoto, Japan, about 1980 by a group of people from the company I was visiting.  At one point I asked about the meaning of a Japanese inscription labelled as being written in about 1870 - but the collective efforts of several intelligent adults were unable to make any sense of it.

[Loki]

Everyone my age knows that the most suitable way to deal with any bully is challenge him to a game, then kill and/or mindrape him when he inevitably loses because you are the King of Games.

But if the bully itself is death, then he becomes a member of your band, and helps as you go on to found a new ideology of peace and rocking out.

I am afraid that reference went over my head.

[Valdís]

@Paul: Yeah, that's a good example of how you can end up with phonetic spellings. Meanwhile the more static and descriptive writing of Kanji gives you sweet-frak-all idea on how to pronounce things at all.. to the point of the same word being written the same way in completely different languages. I think we have a pretty good middle-ground of the two and really can't understand why people take such issue with it.

I guess it's pretty much a case of Churchill-paraphrasing in my opinion. Worst one, except for the others that've been tried.

[ankhtahr]

Contrasting that with Icelandic speakers more or less being able to read the Old Norse texts a millennium later.

Which is why I want to learn Íslenska one day. I want to be able to read the Edda in the original!

Compared to the changes German has undergone…

Mittelhochdeutsch (Middle High German), the German as it was in use between 1050 and 1350 is hardly comprehensable to a modern German speaker. Old High German is even worse.

[Carl-E]

Everyone my age knows that the most suitable way to deal with any bully is challenge him to a game, then kill and/or mindrape him when he inevitably loses because you are the King of Games.

But if the bully itself is death, then he becomes a member of your band, and helps as you go on to found a new ideology of peace and rocking out.

I am afraid that reference went over my head.

Here, have an obscure cultural reference. 

[Valdís]

Compared to the changes German has undergone…

Mittelhochdeutsch (Middle High German), the German as it was in use between 1050 and 1350 is hardly comprehensable to a modern German speaker. Old High German is even worse.

Yeah, first it's a matter of actually standardizing things so that the spellings don't drift as much, which happens at different times. During that era Sweden was still Norse too and still mostly writing in Runes, so of course a lot has changed since then here. A lot of words ended up different in certain regions depending on how they chose to transliterate the Runes, too, since they have fewer letters by that point.

But once those issues get ironed out it isn't that big of a deal for me to read things many centuries old. The spelling-reforms haven't been all that radical.

Something pretty neat from the twilight of Runes, though:

(click to show/hide)

    Drømde mik en drøm i nat
    um silki ok ærlik pæl

    "I dreamt a dream last night of equality and honest measure"

[Audio] Folksong notations with Runic lyrics, written down around 1300.

[GarandMarine]

Clinton made a bad first impression.
Then he made a bad second impression.

Amusingly though, he's in the middle of a similar defensive reaction against Marten as he triggered in Marten by making an ass of himself to Hanners.

Oh how the tables have turned!

[Is it cold in here?]

We don't know that much about his life (just maybe that he have a job as an AI "consultor", or make interviews, surveys, etc).

Isn't he a student? We can guess his major.

I know it's been mentioned before... but I think it needs emphasising.

Based on a whole heap of objective anatomical and consequent psychological evidence... not just subjective self-assessments...

Claire has always been his sister. She just didn't always look like it. Understand that, really accept it, you understand everything, it all makes sense, and is all so simple.

Try looking at the situation any other way, there will always be puzzlements and "wha....??" moments,  things that don't jell.

Understood, but when discussing Clinton's experience of the transition, isn't that what it looked like to him?

I wish all trans people had family members as supportive as Clinton.

-confusing things in English-

Would you like to repost that in the English is Weird thread?

to the point of the same word being written the same way in completely different languages.

A potential upside.

[Latias]

Understood, but when discussing Clinton's experience of the transition, isn't that what it looked like to him?

I can't speak on behalf of the community and I don't claim to represent it, but the way I see it, what you're saying is just wrong, and I'm not sure you understand. Way too much emphasis is placed on transition, people make a big deal out of what should be completely irrelevant. Claire isn't a "trans person", she's just a person. She may have been born with some male traits, physically, but that doesn't change who she is, or was, at all. She's just Claire, and she's always been Claire. Think of "transition" like, say, surgery for a heart condition - do you think of that person any differently because they had surgery for a heart condition? Presumably it doesn't even cross your mind. In the same way that surgery for a heart condition is a non-factor, "transition" should be a non-factor in your mind.

[Valdís]

A potential upside.

Of course, wasn't saying otherwise, but it's in relation to pronunciation. So if it's the same in multiple languages it'd be like "Science" and "Vetenskap" both being represented by 科学 . Doesn't really say a pronunciation for either one, so doesn't help with Zoe's issue. It seems like a highly limited and overall negative upside when one could just learn the word "Science". I mean, I'm not all that good at Russian, but I can still easily get their alphabet to read signs and such. When I was down in Greece I got by okay too with trying to reverse engineer Cyrillic back to Greek.

But if you don't know a particular Hanzi/Kanji?

[Zebediah]

I can't speak on behalf of the community and I don't claim to represent it, but the way I see it, what you're saying is just wrong, and I'm not sure you understand. Way too much emphasis is placed on transition, people make a big deal out of what should be completely irrelevant. Claire isn't a "trans person", she's just a person. She may have been born with some male traits, physically, but that doesn't change who she is, or was, at all. She's just Claire, and she's always been Claire. Think of "transition" like, say, surgery for a heart condition - do you think of that person any differently because they had surgery for a heart condition? Presumably it doesn't even cross your mind. In the same way that surgery for a heart condition is a non-factor, "transition" should be a non-factor in your mind.

"Should be" and "is" are often two different things. What's being speculated upon here is not how Clinton should have thought about Claire, but how he actually thought about her.

[Valdís]

Understood, but when discussing Clinton's experience of the transition, isn't that what it looked like to him?

If it did, he would've been wrong. Also I seriously doubt he'd look at it like that anymore at all, what-with being a good person and all. If he ever did in the first place.

Viewing coming out as a "Gender change" is quite egregiously wrong, to be honest, and at the root of a lot of transphobia.

What's being speculated upon here is not how Clinton should have thought about Claire, but how he actually thought about her.

Not editing in this to my last post as intended, since it applies here too.

[Neko_Ali]

I personally look on being transgender as a kind or birth defect. One that doesn't show up usually until later in life. Though more and more kids are feeling free enough to express themselves very early, and are blessed with parents who accept and help them, rather than repress.  But like people with other birth defects, we get a lot of ridicule, bulling outright discrimination or hatred for something we never chose and had no control over. In some cases treatment and surgery can deal with the problem and allow the person to live what some people would call a 'normal' life. Or more accurately live in a way more comfortable to themselves. But if someone had their eyes fixed, or their hearing restored or their legs fixed, that doesn't change who they are. They aren't suddenly 'ex-cripples' as some people would rudely call them. They are just people. It's the same thing with trans people. We are just people. People who got dealt with this particular raw deal of birth. Transitioning doesn't change who or what we are. We don't go from 'male' to 'female' or vice versa.. or any other combination. We are just changing our outsides to be more in matching of who we really are.