Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

WCDT Strips 3066 to 3070 (12th - 16th October 2015)

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Method of Madness:

--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 18 Oct 2015, 09:14 ---Which to me entail acknowledging their differences, though as a distant second after acknowledging all we have in common.
--- End quote ---
Which 100% applies to humans as well!

Zebediah:
And, to bring this back around to the comic - I think everyone there was treating Bubbles with the same amount of respect  they would treat anyone else they had just met. Which in the case of Faye, May and Pintsize means not very much.

Morituri:
Pinnochio Syndrome. (warning:  Allthetropes link) http://allthetropes.wikia.com/wiki/Pinocchio_Syndrome

Is when someone "wants to be a real boy" or whatever, having mistaken himself for something that isn't real. 

IMO, it's a fallacy.  If someone isn't "real", then they could not be thinking about whether they were real or not.  And if someone isn't "real" then there's nothing for a word like "want" in the phrase "want to be a real boy" to mean. 

It doesn't stop it from happening in reality though.  You know what you spend most of your time doing when you teach sex-ed classes for early teenagers?  You spend most of your time reassuring them that they're normal.  Because they're just scared to death that "normal" people don't have this fantasy or that fetish or feel same-sex attraction or whatever, and that they're some kind of FREAK because they do - and no, they're really, really not.  And they don't want to be FREAKS, they want to be "a real boy" - or "a real girl" - or know that they're not the only one who doesn't feel like "boy" or "girl" are the right or only categories, or whatever.  I spend most of my volunteer time just saying, "Nope, that's normal."  Or "Yeah, that's kind of lonely but there's nothing wrong with it and it happens to lots of people," or "Oh, well if that doesn't work for you here's how some other folks with that same difficulty deal with it...."  And the reassuring them that all this diversity is in fact normal, is more important than anything I can teach them about how to deal with their particular combination. 

People who are different in any way fear that they aren't "real" or "normal" or whatever.  I have no doubt that the silicon-vs-protein split will continue to get the same kind of reaction.  In fact I'd consider the absence of that reaction to be more the sign of a genuine freak.

jwhouk:
We had an AI Rights thread at one point, I think? Maybe the discussion should head over there.

Shjade:

--- Quote from: mustang6172 on 15 Oct 2015, 20:33 ---Welp!  I guess Jeph can't write an introvert who is content to be an introvert, or keep a character nice and static.

I gave him way too much credit.

--- End quote ---

Just a note on writing: static characters are, more or less, plot contrivances. If a character is static, it's generally due to 1) the character not being important enough to explore beyond their surface level in the text, 2) the character not being interesting enough for same, 3) character is being used to make a point (contrasting with another character's ability to grow and change, for instance), or 4) the writer's incapable of crafting better characters.

If you're going to take the time to focus on a character (as is occurring here with Bubbles), chances are that character isn't going to be static, or else you're probably wasting everyone's time.

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