Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT strips 3706-3710 (26th to 30th March 2018)
ckridge:
Faye and Renee are doubles: loyal if difficult friends, intrusive, prickly, pushy, mouthy. Faye is wounded, Renee is not.
Bubbles and Elliot are doubles: big scary-looking people, skilled at violence, hard on the outside, sweet on the inside, afraid of rejection. Bubbles is wounded, Elliot is not.
Any more?
awgiedawgie:
--- Quote from: arcanicEmbers on 30 Mar 2018, 07:30 ---
--- Quote from: Near Lurker on 29 Mar 2018, 19:18 ---wow, Clinton came really close to outing Claire there. If Elliot becomes a member of their circle, he may well connect the dots. (...well, maybe not him, but someone else in his position might.) Maybe he should keep her in mind next time he decides to get drunk outside private gatherings.
--- End quote ---
Weighing in on this as a trans person, I don't think he did? I mean, you might be able to extrapolate that she's queer from the statement- or that she's just a very open person. Of course, to someone who already knows the Claire is trans, it's going to be obvious what he means. To someone who doesn't... Eh. Not so much. There's no reference to how she taught him to be true to himself, so it could potentially be anything from her being trans, as she is, to her making him watch a bunch of true to yourself cartoons when they were kids. Even drunk, I don't think he's too close to outing her.
--- End quote ---
Maybe I'm misinterpreting the comment, but I don't think Near Lurker meant that Clinton actually said anything that almost outed Claire, but rather that he almost said it. It appears that he started to say something, but the ellipsis in panel 3 indicates that Clinton stopped himself from saying anything that might give her away. Clinton is extremely protective of his sister, and even when he's drunk, he is careful to maintain her privacy.
OldGoat:
--- Quote from: ckridge on 30 Mar 2018, 12:30 ---Faye and Renee are doubles: loyal if difficult friends, intrusive, prickly, pushy, mouthy. Faye is wounded, Renee is not.
Bubbles and Elliot are doubles: big scary-looking people, skilled at violence, hard on the outside, sweet on the inside, afraid of rejection. Bubbles is wounded, Elliot is not.
--- End quote ---
I must qibble.
We know Faye and Bubbles are wounded, but we know little to nothing about Renee's and Elloit's backstories. Each may or may not have experienced emotionally crippling traumas their own. That's why I don't permanently attach a Certified Asshole badge to Renee no matter how often she seems to earn it.
(Elliot, OTOH, couldn't qualify for an asshole badge if he had a PhD in douchenozzlery and aced the state board exams.)
ckridge:
It is true that we don't have backstory on either of the ones I am calling unwounded.
--- Quote from: OldGoat on 30 Mar 2018, 15:15 ---That's why I don't permanently attach a Certified Asshole badge to Renee no matter how often she seems to earn it.
--- End quote ---
Renee's a yenta, is all: pushy, busybodied, gossiping, in everyone's business all the time, and the first person to call if you are in a jam. I have a theory that she is hated, not because she crashes across boundaries, but because she is female, unwounded, capable, and crashes across boundaries. Angus dancing triumphantly in nothing but a purple condom outside Faye's door in Marten's own apartment, when Marten has lusted in vain after Faye, passes unnoticed because Angus is a guy. Hannelore walking in and out of Faye's and Marten's apartment at will passes unnoticed because Hannelore is wounded. Faye punching and saying mean things is unnoticed because Faye is wounded. Renee acting like everyone else while unwounded and female produces sudden shock that boundaries are being crossed. It is not like she is big and dangerous like Elliot or Bubbles. She is capable, is all. Capable women aren't dangerous, they are just capable. It is unjust and unfair to condemn them for acting like everyone else. You don't have to like them, but that doesn't mean they are any worse than the next person.
I don't think that the crashing across boundaries is incidental or trivial either. Someone upthread points out correctly that much of the comedy in the strip runs off people crashing through boundaries, but that's not its only function. One of the strip's concerns is how you act when you live where all different kinds of people mix together. No one's village mores apply, because no one is in their home village anymore, and none of the village mores were designed for situations like these anyway. Instead, you rely on very basic courtesy, recently improvised rules of thumb, sincere good will, and apologies. QC is a comedy of bad manners because it is concerned with how you act when you are inevitably going to have bad manners sometimes. Clinton just made a gross social blunder by embracing Elliot and telling him to try his luck with the cute guy, but it will be OK because it was done good-heartedly. Renee blunders by overprotecting and micromanaging Brun's life, but it will be OK because it is done out of sincere concern. They all blunder, realize, apologize, and try again. It's how things work there.
Milayna:
It honestly surprises me when I see hate on Faye or Renee. Slapstick and and tsundere-adjacent behavior is such a mainstay of, at least, the media I consume that a lot of what they do sails right by me. Renee annoys me slightly but no more than that, and Faye is mostly alright in my book.
I don't act like that in real life, though. As far as I can estimate, tsundere-adjacent behavior is unlikely to be acceptable in real life; this isn't counting good-natured friendly trolling. I can't think of anyone I know personally or through meatspace culture that pulls it off, anyway. And if behavior like that is a viable rl archetype, it's not something I can possibly pull off; it's difficult enough to stay in favor even when I try to be overly obsequious.
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