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Poll

What do you want to see wrapped up first?

Just what are Faye and Bubbles to each other?
- 31 (42.5%)
Will Roko ever find that intimate companion she wants?
- 9 (12.3%)
Will Melon be drawn into the core cast?
- 3 (4.1%)
When will Hannelore and Winslow return home?
- 5 (6.8%)
Will Dora need a new employee, if so, who?
- 0 (0%)
Is there anything left to develop with Marten and Claire?
- 3 (4.1%)
Just how will the Brun-Clinton-Elliott triangle resolve itself?
- 22 (30.1%)
Other (please specify in comment)
- 0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 68


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Author Topic: (CW/TW: Abuse) WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)  (Read 75772 times)

brasca

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Re: WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)
« Reply #250 on: 04 May 2018, 11:31 »

Okay, Chris? Let's set aside all of the strawmen here and get down to cases:

1) This is about Marten, not me, not you and not anyone else;

2) Marten clearly didn't feel abused because, even if he wouldn't have responded, his various girlfriends certainly would have - Definitely Dora;

3) The fact that nothing ever came of it indicates that Faye's behaviour was never as threatening or as abusive as you perceive it to be.

End of story.

Thats the damn problem, she is abusive, physically abusive and no one calls her out on it, ever and shes never had to face up to the repercussions of her violence

Maybe if there was a storyline where she addresses her violence and understands what that violence does to others I might start to think of her differently but at the moment she lives a life where she can punch anyone she likes, threaten anyone she likes and generally be intimidating to whoever she likes and everything's hunky dory

Agreed, but the advantage of possibly being in a relationship with Bubbles is she’s probably the only person she can’t intimidate with violence and even she admits as much.
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chris73

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Re: WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)
« Reply #251 on: 04 May 2018, 12:47 »

Okay, Chris? Let's set aside all of the strawmen here and get down to cases:

1) This is about Marten, not me, not you and not anyone else;

2) Marten clearly didn't feel abused because, even if he wouldn't have responded, his various girlfriends certainly would have - Definitely Dora;

3) The fact that nothing ever came of it indicates that Faye's behaviour was never as threatening or as abusive as you perceive it to be.

End of story.

Thats the damn problem, she is abusive, physically abusive and no one calls her out on it, ever and shes never had to face up to the repercussions of her violence

Maybe if there was a storyline where she addresses her violence and understands what that violence does to others I might start to think of her differently but at the moment she lives a life where she can punch anyone she likes, threaten anyone she likes and generally be intimidating to whoever she likes and everything's hunky dory

Agreed, but the advantage of possibly being in a relationship with Bubbles is she’s probably the only person she can’t intimidate with violence and even she admits as much.

But the intent is still there and on occasion shes certainly intimidated Claire  so just because she can't hurt Bubbles doesn't make it a good thing because her first reaction, without thinking, is to threaten and bully.
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Re: WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)
« Reply #252 on: 04 May 2018, 12:49 »

You know, I think that some of you must be reading a different strip to me. She didn't 'bully' or 'intimidate' Claire. She made it abundantly clear that she expected Claire to be more considerate of her room-mates in future. Mostly because seeing a 'red tarantula' in the bath scared her out of her wits.
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Re: WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)
« Reply #253 on: 04 May 2018, 13:14 »

Anyone have the strip reference? I seem to remember Claire being afraid.  Even more vaguely I think I remember something from early on where she tried to establish dominance.
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awgiedawgie

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Re: WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)
« Reply #254 on: 04 May 2018, 13:45 »

It was 2930, and Marten did object to it.
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Re: WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)
« Reply #255 on: 04 May 2018, 13:48 »

You know, I think that some of you must be reading a different strip to me. She didn't 'bully' or 'intimidate' Claire. She made it abundantly clear that she expected Claire to be more considerate of her room-mates in future. Mostly because seeing a 'red tarantula' in the bath scared her out of her wits.

Yeah you're right, nothing intimidating about this at all: http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2930 which is where Marten, knowing all about Faye, should have stepped in and said something, anything about Fayes behavior but he didn't which leads onto this: http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2976 where Claire seems genuinely scared that Faye will assault Marten and then we have Faye, again, intimadating Claire: http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3604

But hey its all good because Faye had a Traumatic Experience (TM)
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chris73

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Re: WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)
« Reply #256 on: 04 May 2018, 13:50 »

It was 2930, and Marten did object to it.

Its not quite "please don't threaten my girlfriend" is it
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awgiedawgie

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Re: WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)
« Reply #257 on: 04 May 2018, 14:11 »

Interestingly enough, that's really close to how I see my friends. Sure, intellectually, I know some of them are black, some are Asian, etc., but for all intents and purposes, when I'm talking to them, I don't see their color. I see them as my friends, and as people. It's not a question of noticing their ethnicity, but rather of focusing on it. Most of the time, a person's race is almost entirely irrelevant. When you're hanging out with someone, or going to a concert, or the monster truck rally, or whatever, what difference does it really make what color skin your friends have? And in the few situations where one of my friends' race is a relevant detail, I have enough respect for them to treat it that way. I feel like many AIs would love it if humans would occasionally forget that they are different, and simply treat them as ordinary people.

This, unfortunately, is white privilege in action. It's great to have a colourblind attitude towards life in principle, but the world is simply not yet a good enough place for that to be something we can all rely on, because that same colourblind attitude is also part of what props up the establishment.
Interesting response. I didn’t say what color my skin is, and yet you seem to assume that I’m white. So, do I understand you correctly? You think that it’s a bad thing that I don’t make an issue out of the color of my friends’ skin? Even though they appreciate that from me, when so many other people do make an issue of it? It seems to me that if more people would adopt a colorblind attitude, the world would be a better place.
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Re: WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)
« Reply #258 on: 04 May 2018, 14:13 »

Taken completely out of context - Claire was being rude to Faye. Did Faye hit her? Beat her bloody? No, she told her that she won't let her relationship with Marten let her disrespect her and her art.

FWIW, at the time, it was my impression that Claire was the one initiating the conflict.
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chris73

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Re: WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)
« Reply #259 on: 04 May 2018, 14:17 »

Taken completely out of context - Claire was being rude to Faye. Did Faye hit her? Beat her bloody? No, she told her that she won't let her relationship with Marten let her disrespect her and her art.

FWIW, at the time, it was my impression that Claire was the one initiating the conflict.

Claire was being sassy, just like Faye is, and when Faye got a bit of her own medicine Faye didn't like it at all. When you have a reputation for being violent you don't have to hit someone you only have to threaten because the violence is implied.

Ok for the sake of argument lets say Claire went to far,  was Fayes response appropriate? No Faye escalated the situation by implying violence which was a dick move considering that Faye is larger and stronger than Claire, Claire has shown no real outbursts of violence herself and is generally considered meek and nerdy

In short Claire is no threat to Faye at all so no need for implied violence in this situation but thats what Faye likes, she likes to bully and intimidate people, its her go to

« Last Edit: 04 May 2018, 14:22 by chris73 »
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awgiedawgie

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Re: WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)
« Reply #260 on: 04 May 2018, 14:19 »

It was 2930, and Marten did object to it.

Its not quite "please don't threaten my girlfriend" is it
He's visibly unhappy. And he may not have used those exact words, but actually, yes, that's pretty much what he did say.
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Re: WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)
« Reply #261 on: 04 May 2018, 14:21 »

I'm really getting the impression that this is personal for you. Very personal. But we won't go there as it is mostly irrelevant.

It's pretty clear to me that you and I see totally different things in the same strips and it is pointless debating when the other person isn't even in the same reality as you.
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chris73

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Re: WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)
« Reply #262 on: 04 May 2018, 14:30 »

It was 2930, and Marten did object to it.

Then I'd suggest he tries a little bit harder because it doesn't seem to be working:

http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3604

Fayes reaction reaction here, once again played for yucks, seems a tad disproportionate to what happened
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chris73

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Re: WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)
« Reply #263 on: 04 May 2018, 14:30 »

I'm really getting the impression that this is personal for you. Very personal. But we won't go there as it is mostly irrelevant.

It's pretty clear to me that you and I see totally different things in the same strips and it is pointless debating when the other person isn't even in the same reality as you.

I agree with you
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Re: WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)
« Reply #264 on: 04 May 2018, 15:16 »

Interestingly enough, that's really close to how I see my friends. Sure, intellectually, I know some of them are black, some are Asian, etc., but for all intents and purposes, when I'm talking to them, I don't see their color. I see them as my friends, and as people. It's not a question of noticing their ethnicity, but rather of focusing on it. Most of the time, a person's race is almost entirely irrelevant. When you're hanging out with someone, or going to a concert, or the monster truck rally, or whatever, what difference does it really make what color skin your friends have? And in the few situations where one of my friends' race is a relevant detail, I have enough respect for them to treat it that way. I feel like many AIs would love it if humans would occasionally forget that they are different, and simply treat them as ordinary people.

This, unfortunately, is white privilege in action. It's great to have a colourblind attitude towards life in principle, but the world is simply not yet a good enough place for that to be something we can all rely on, because that same colourblind attitude is also part of what props up the establishment.
Interesting response. I didn’t say what color my skin is, and yet you seem to assume that I’m white. So, do I understand you correctly? You think that it’s a bad thing that I don’t make an issue out of the color of my friends’ skin? Even though they appreciate that from me, when so many other people do make an issue of it? It seems to me that if more people would adopt a colorblind attitude, the world would be a better place.
Happy to admit I have no idea what race you are, but part of the issue of writing on this forum is that I often don't write down everything I am thinking, and so I missed out - your personal race was not actually relevant to my point, and I definitely shouldn't have said white privilege specifically.

The world would be a better place if everyone was colourblind. But if simply more were, then you run a risk of people being overlooked.

Being from a racial minority in a lot of areas in countries with a higher GDP makes it more likely you will have a poorer background, a less effective education, and receive less opportunity. If the world becomes partly colour blind without being completely so, then on paper I think many things in life would take a step back, because on paper, you're going to find a lot of white people with further advantage.

I'm obviously not saying that the world is a worse place because you treat your friends as people regardless of race - I'm more accurately saying I don't trust a lot of world as much as I trust you to be able to genuinely be colour blind. Because I absolutely believe you can, but I also know that I definitely can't, and as a matter of fact as a white person don't yet feel that I should, because in my immediate friendship group there is a lot of discussion about difficult topics and a bit of activism, and so not considering the backgrounds of each individual is a mistake. But then as I write this, that could be argued as treating them in a colourblind fashion.

TL;DR: I do not trust colourblindness as a tool in many hands.
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Re: WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)
« Reply #265 on: 04 May 2018, 15:40 »

There's a time to be colorblind, and a time to be color-conscious. If you can overlook a person's race when it really doesn't matter, but respect it when it really does, then you're on the right track. When you mention discussing difficult topics and activism (there's also different medical problems, for example, that affect different races), that's what I was talking about where race is a relevant detail. And of course there's also people's personal background to consider. For example, a white person who has lived in an African country for 15 years will have different views and different concerns than say a white person living in Little Rock, Arkansas. They tend to think and act a lot like the native Africans, even if they relocate to a predominantly white area in America.
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Morituri

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There are a lot of people for whom some level of violence is in fact a "normal" part of their relationships.  And they're not stockholm-syndrome zombies, they're pretty ordinary people who mostly don't hesitate to reciprocate in kind. 

Thing about that is, they aren't trying to actually hurt each other.  They don't regard it as traumatic or even problematic. Nobody gets more than a bruise, they're still friends the next day, and they don't consider themselves or their partners to be "abused." 

Faye isn't even going that far.  Has Faye ever actually injured someone in this comic?  I can't recall a single time.  In the absence of any indication that anyone has ever been actually physically hurt by her, I don't think I can take her so-called violence as an indication that she's physically abusive. 

She makes threats, which is emotionally abusive.  But the other hallmarks of emotional abuse aren't there; she doesn't try to drive people away from their other friends nor deprive them of support the way classic abusers like Corpse Witch do. Think of Corpse Witch trying to manipulate Bubbles into never going out, mistrusting all humans, and having no friends beyond the skatepark.  THAT is emotional abuse.  Faye doesn't reduce anyone's options for dealing with her that way, nor make arbitrary demands that prevent anyone from living a normal life.  And nobody's life is reduced to the point where a major part of their reality is just being her victim over and over, which someone has to be trying to do before I'd be willing to even call them a bully.   Think of CreepyBot and the delight s/he took in the prospect of deliberately torturing someone reduced to a helpless state, forever. That's a bully.  That's not what Faye's doing.

All told, it looks more like she has trouble controlling her temper, in general, than it looks like she's engaging in any kind of calculated abuse, like Hanners' mom or Corpse Witch or bullying, like CreepyBot.

Maybe you're just using these words to refer to different kinds of behavior than everyone else?

Faye needs a better vocabulary for talking about her feelings, better negotiating tactics, more willingness to respect others' boundaries....  but I don't see any support for the idea that she's a 'bully' or a 'thug' or any serious kind of 'abuser.'
« Last Edit: 04 May 2018, 16:51 by Morituri »
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I feel like it's a joke of its time, like Marten and Dora's transphobic banter or Faye's exhortation Sara rape "hump" Marten against his will (NB: when this joke was censored, the objection addressed was apparently to referring to holding a man down over a counter and enveloping him as "rape," not to the act itself), to which this is a self-flagellating callback that merits far less scrutiny than Faye's admission Bubbles' backrub physically turned her on.
« Last Edit: 04 May 2018, 17:31 by Near Lurker »
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Morituri

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I just noticed in the archive that Claire has probably been shipping Faye & Bubbles too.

THANK GOD she resisted the urge to push.

http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3605
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awgiedawgie

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I just noticed in the archive that Claire has probably been shipping Faye & Bubbles too.

THANK GOD she resisted the urge to push.
That's a comforting sign that she has learned from the mistakes she made with her brother.
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Faye needs a better vocabulary for talking about her feelings, better negotiating tactics, more willingness to respect others' boundaries....  but I don't see any support for the idea that she's a 'bully' or a 'thug' or any serious kind of 'abuser.'
I just came in here to say exactly that - including the part how some people's friendship is different, has different boundaries, and yes, might include the occasional punch. And no, not just ladies hitting gentlemen, and not always does the other person hit back. And sometimes it leaves a bruise. And yet, those friendships are loving, supportive and nobody considers themselves abused or forces to do something they didn't want to do.

Furthermore, I fully support Faye making it abundantly clear that cleaning up after yourself is not optional. I've lived with roommates straight out of hotel mom way too long for that. 
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And yet, those friendships are loving, supportive and nobody considers themselves abused or forces to do something they didn't want to do.

And yet, and yet...   From time to time we observe that the scales may drop from such people's eyes when they realise that they bought some kind of stability which they thought could be called happiness by giving up all the other possibilities for their life; they then discover regret.  The cynical might say that is the normal state of marriage.  But a change in viewpoint can come from the effect of slow but inexorable changes in the way society as a whole sees relationships.  We all hope our choices are for the best by the criteria we are familiar with at the time we make them, but then if things change...
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Global Moderator Comment How is Randy the bandicoot like the Faye argument?Both are eternal.Please respect the thoughts and feelings of people who disagree with you.This is meant for everyone and not just for one person.

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My own opinion is that the more realistic the strip gets, the less funny Faye's punches and threats are.
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Faye needs a better vocabulary for talking about her feelings, better negotiating tactics, more willingness to respect others' boundaries....  but I don't see any support for the idea that she's a 'bully' or a 'thug' or any serious kind of 'abuser.'

Yeah ... good point. I concur. It's just that her punching is part of a trope that normalizes the violence of bullies and thugs and 'serious kind of abusers'. (Is there a kind that's not serious?) She's not an abuser, but her punching being played for laffs is a teensyweensy part of an abusers camouflage. It's one of the very few things Jeph did less than stellar.

I certainly won't quit QC, and I. Do not. Hate. Faye - but I stopped laughing about Faye's punching a long time ago. (Actually, I never started, but that's another story)

This forum has had epic threads of post after post of Very Decent Human Beings explaining to Akima how they think she's completely right that Firefly is hilariously flawed in the way it deals with Chinese culture ... andcouldwepleasestoptalkingaboutthisandgetbacktoBrowncoatjokes? Human beings busy being very human indeed.



Are we doing a good job right now?

I look at all the good posts on the topic, from all the sharp cookies we have on this board, and the longer I look the antsier I become. Not about what we say - about what we DON'T say. I notice that we make a lot of astute observations about a lot of important stuff, but are we making a simple, affirmative gesture that would signal to the male DV survivors reading this: "I'm with you. You're right, I'm not laughing either"?

And this is a bad look for a board that learned in all the tricks & ways society employs in "Project Displacement - How to completely ignore a problem and shut out everyone affected AND convince yourself you're Doing! Something!". Every second spent explaining our feelings and our perspective is a second someone is waiting for us to acknowledge theirs. It looks as if we're ready to talk about every old thing in the Universe, as long as it allows us to put off acknowledging another human being's pain for five more minutes, or how - God beware! - there might be a bit of a blind spot in our Weltauffassung!, or how our team might not have covered itself in glory dealing with that one in the past ... That's not us. Let's not give this impression.

Let's not give the impression that we're ready to write elegies to defend feminism or the social justice movement against another stupid MRA-provocation meme and not spend a second talking TO a survivor instead of AT them. That's what those memes and provocations were designed for in the first place: To trick us into alienating a survivor. To go all cerebral and start EXPLAINING! FEMINISM! when we should be making an emotional connection. You don't need to be a genius to figure this out.  There's no grand strategy behind those memes, and yet they're still kicking our asses all over the place. You don't need to be a genius to learn how play Mom & Dad against each other - toddlers figure out how to do that, just by trial & error and observing closely. And they barely have a theory of mind, let alone a grand societal theory.

Liberals are hilariously bad NOT falling for this trick: A lot of progressives are academy trained. Part of that training is to make going into the abstraction an instinctive move. And going all abstract is one of the oldest, and most effective displacement tactics - it's called rationalization. Maybe we feel just the slightest bit uncomfortable, or out of our depths - for whatever reason - What better way to not confront that than to rationalize?

Guys? Feminism and the social justice movement will survive if we don't defend them for five minutes. Yes, I'm sure of that. In fact, what it might not survive is us not shutting up about it for five minutes.
Not everybody who talks about feeling wary of some aspects or fringe elements of online feminism is an MRA. Some guys might just want vent for bit, want to make their pain and disappointment visible. And they don't have to get it completely right while they vent. Letting them do that, at least for a while, is not going to kill 'the movement'. And it's a good start building trust. Next step would be avoiding our instinct to patiently lecture the audience why the anger of the uninitiated is understandable, but misguided.  Every time we do that, Paul Elam orgasms. It makes us look all manners of dumb, of the kind of 'dumb you need a degree for'


P.S.: From this moment forward, I will kill one of these cute kittens every time someone says the words 'patriarchy', 'privilege' or 'this is part of the patriarchy that the modern social justice movement seeks to overcome' while talking about male DV survivors.
 Do you have any idea what those words mean to JoeBlow out of Bumbfuck, AZ who doesn't like Paul Elam, but thinks that not everything on AVFM.com is wrong? To Joe, they mean, respectively: "Misandry doesn't exist, because everybody who claims otherwise is misogynist. QED", "Wait until I'm done talking about your problem" and "Male DW survivors should wait until Feminism has finished solving womens' problems. Of course we'll start on the rest right afterwards".

You have been warned - think of the kittens.
« Last Edit: 05 May 2018, 09:24 by Case »
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Re: WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)
« Reply #274 on: 05 May 2018, 09:59 »

The only times I have ever seen "SJWs" resistant to arguments about violence against men by women, it has been when those arguments were raised as an objection to arguments about intimate partner violence against women. As though the existence of violence against men negates the problem of violence against women. It is a rejection of the "whataboutism" used to diminish the significance of an issue.

Yeah, about that one ... you remember the #whataboutzemenz - meme? Brilliant idea, that one - if you feel exhausted by a small, but determined clique of MRA's anti-feminists hounding feminist spaces, create a meme that plays on ridicule and male fear of appearing weak, omit any anything that would signal differentiation between bad-faith trolls (whose attacks are virtually unknown to anybody but you and your friends) and every male DV survivor on the planet, aim it at one of the oldest festering wounds that toxic masculinity has struck, and release it into the wild to propagate freely. Beyond your control. Wasn't there something we ...? OHSHIT!

What could possibly go wrong?

Surely everyone will understand you didn't mean to actually ridicule the concerns of male DV survivors in a way guaranteed to put 'that look' on every single male face (The empty-eyes look. The 'you can't hurt me' look. The 'one step further' look).

Then write long articles bemoaning how many people did indeed think this was exactly what you were doing, because the virality of your meme has pretty much erased any possibility you have to clarify your intentions in time. Don't forget to appear as if you think that male DV survivor's concerns are a distracting footnote in the struggle for gender equality, even if you don't think that is the case, but you just had to add that one thought more ...

Do you know that old adage that Feminism has the PR deparment from Hell? Yes. It does.

And society's failure to recognize intimate partner violence against men as a problem is not rooted in feminism or the broader social justice movement.

That's very true. It's so true that even non-feminist advocates for male DV survivors acknowledge and emphasize this (Yes, unicorns sane men's-issues advocates actually do exist. And no, they don't think much of the MRA, either. But they won't turn away men who are MRA-affine, or are eager to ride to the defence of Feminism in the aftermath of the latest 3rd waver wunderkind's attempts to explain to everyone what they are getting wrong and how Feminism clarifies & addresses the real problemTM .

No, it's not Feminism that taught boys not to cry, and taught them so well that middle-aged men don't notice their major depression until it's almost too late. It's not Feminism that chewed off boys ears about  rugged independence until male students have to be taught that it's OK to ask their TA's for help because that's what they are getting paid for. It wasn't Feminism that taught boys that real men are basically statues, and then wondered why legions of men don't have the faintest idea what they are feeling. It wasn't Feminism that did all those things to men - not realizing that this toxic ideal would men practically helpless to defend themselves against abusers, especially female ones, to the point where some don't even realize they are being abused (of the first cohort of British male abuse victims who were given shelter places newly assigned for that purpose by the UK parliament, every single one had been registered by a female friend or family member. Not one of the men had asked for help themselves).

It's just that a goodly chunk of the more visible parts of online feminism, especially the virally savvy parts, is jaw-droppingly excellent at leaving exactly that impression, especially when they set out to dispel that precisely that impression. Cf. everything Lindy West ever wrote for Jezebel, ever, the 'bathing in male tears'-meme, the roaring success that was 'ironic misandry' and ... oh c'mon, were have you been the last four years?

That idea falls under "toxic masculinity" that the modern social justice movement seeks to end.

I ... would consult a unicorn sane mens' issues advocate (*) for the cases were that isn't the whole truth before I repeated that in certain circles.

(*) Ally Fogg's https://freethoughtblogs.com/hetpat. Don't delve directly into the articles tagged 'feminism', get a feel for the site first. No, he isn't an MRA, and no, he isn't anti-feminist, but ... online Feminism really spends a lot of time sticking its foot in its mouth, and Ally is not its PR-manager. Note of caution: Ally really is that unicorn, but the comments are not a safe space. They're more of a social experiment a la "Take a bunch of semi-domesticated MRA's and Feminists, take away the guns and knives and dig through the rubble for the useful ideas. Don't forget to bring an asbestos suit and shovels. Lots of shovels ..." There's only one rule: Comments solely aimed against either Feminism or MRM as institutions/philosophies are forbidden. It's surprisingly effective - particularly since a lot of MRAs are actually anti-feminist - but there is a chance you'll witness Paul Elam and the WeHuntedTheMammoth-dude slug it out in the comments
« Last Edit: 05 May 2018, 12:21 by Case »
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Re: WCDT strips 3731-3735 (30th April to 4th May 2018)
« Reply #276 on: 05 May 2018, 12:21 »

...

Nope. I'm done.

Wait! Please.

I thought I was talking about how a goodly chunk of the social justice movement, especially the parts enchanted by viral strategies, don't notice how effective the MRA are at exploiting the social justice movements' own blind spots to use viral campaigns against the campaign's originators - and then wonder about how the hell "the backlash" is so extreme.

How did it sound? Apparently not as good as in my head.

What did you think I was trying to say? Apparently, there were some slight differences between what was in my head, and what appeared on screen. (Oh the irony ...)

P.S.: I would greatly appreciate your help with understanding in more detail how I fucked up, but at a glance, my use of sarcasm was ... ill-advised, to put it mildly. What I set out to express is almost completely buried under the smart-aleckness. My apologies.
« Last Edit: 05 May 2018, 15:09 by Case »
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Morituri

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Please don't give up on the board just because a sensitive topic came up.  This board actually handles sensitive topics and does it well.

On this board, in the non-comic discussion areas, those of us who have gotten to trust each other's sincerity and goodwill kick around some very inflammatory topics.  Things polite people simply don't discuss among strangers in public, because very strong opinions often result in traumatized or offended people, or bad behavior.

Unmoderated discussions online bring out some of the worst in people, we know that.  They tend to bring ill will, or unchecked verbal abuse, or the bullying and baiting tactics of the more strident and adversarial forums, or otherwise "shed more heat than light" as my dad used to say. 

But that's not what happens here.

We've talked about racism - even about Nazis and eugenics programs - we've talked about the backlash against gay and bi and trans people and about responses to it.  We've talked about abuse and mental illness and mass shootings and guns and the gun control lobby. We've discussed slavery, and trafficking.  We've even discussed American Politics and some of the other darkest topics that humanity comes up with.  The culture here is pro human rights and mostly liberal, but there have been a wide variety of viewpoints and they've been presented respectfully.

And I promise, it's been civil.  With very few and short-lived exceptions.  This place has REALLY good moderators.  They allow ideas to be expressed as long as it's done civilly.  But when someone gets abusive or outright insulting, they get stopped.  Even with the banhammer, if necessary.  Honestly and truly, you don't need to worry about being bullied or baited or insulted or mocked by a toxic "Mens-Rights-Advocate" as they call themselves, even though that's their favorite tactic where they are given free rein.   And that's not who Case is.

Seriously.  Stay a while, talk with us.  You're safe.  It's okay that people have different opinions.  And I'm telling you just about everybody here, just about all the time, will actually listen and thoughtfully respond, instead of just shouting and bullying.  It's a really good place like that. 
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On Faye and violence, she was called out on it. Admittedly, after they moved:
http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=416
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Morituri,

Yes. I know. I spend a lot more time in the Discuss board than I do in this one. I don't post nearly as much as I lurk, but that's mostly because I find the people who do post there to be thoughtful and well informed (including and even particularly Case) and I don't often feel I can add much more than they already have. I am not giving up on the board or the forum. I was feeling very ill at ease and was in no place emotionally to continue in the conversation in that state. When I am upset, I make mistakes. Occasionally vulgar ones that I cannot unmake. I do not want to do that here. So I stepped away.

Case,

I know very well that you did not intend to be hurtful and that any insult I may have felt was at least as much my own biases filtering your words as it was anything you posted. Intimate partner violence against men is a difficult subject for me (and I swear is not the topic I meant to bring up when I initially addressed Chris. I was looking for a discussion about how we as an audience react to realistic violence in a cartoon setting where other acts of violence are framed as normal. I should have done more to clarify that). Once that nerve was struck, I was not in a place to handle further conversation. I feel that now I am. But I feel that why I reacted the way I did warrants explanation and is possibly relevant to the discussion at large, so please bear with me while I expose some scar tissue.

And even thought it's already in the thread title, Content Warning for domestic violence

I was assigned male at birth. I still present male in public places because it's safer and my secondary sexual characteristics are very prominent. Presenting female actually increases feelings of dysphoria for me because it highlights the parts of my body that are not feminine. In spaces like this where my body doesn't matter, I much prefer presenting as female and using she/her pronouns. Because my dysphoria is highly dependent on my situation, I generally describe myself as non-binary. I am also demisexual and bi. Thirteen years ago, I had no idea that those were things that someone could be. Mostly because of my "conservative" religious upbringing, I thought trans people were just homosexuals with a weird sex thing and that being gay or bi was something other people were, but definitely not me. As far as anyone knew, including myself, I was just a chronically depressed cis het man. Thirteen years ago, I also got married.

It was fine at first. I was happy. But she had a habit of kicking over sand castles just because you were proud of them and she thought you shouldn't be. "It was a joke. Lighten up. It's only a sand castle." This should have been a red flag, but I didn't see it. Slowly, emotional abuse escalated. When we fought, if I got too angry, I was a bully. If I didn't get angry enough, I was emotionally distant and I didn't care. There was never a right amount of angry to be. If I got upset about something she did, she would soon enough launch into a crying fit about how I thought she was a terrible wife and I must hate her and refused to speak to me until I apologized and reassured her that she was a wonderful wife and I was wrong to have brought it up. We never did talk about my damned sand castle. I became more and more unhappy. When I once suggested separating for a while to cool our heads and to get into therapy once we were in an emotional state to do so, she threatened suicide if I left. So I stayed. One night, the fighting became too much and I said I was going to go stay with a friend until we calmed down. She began screaming. She started hitting me; throwing punches. Her shouting wasn't even coherent at that point. I tried to get away, but she planted herself in front of the door and wouldn't let me pass. I didn't want to take a chance with the back door, because that way led through the kitchen where the knives were. Eventually I was able to force my way past the door and out for the night.

The next day I had a fat lip and a black eye. She had a few bruises on her right arm where I had tried to push her arm away to get away. To get her to stop hitting me. Mutual friends who I thought knew me and trusted me were sure I was lying, that I must have instigated the violence because she had a bruise. Other friends laughed and mocked me because my wife gave me a shiner. Others insisted that I should have been the "bigger person" and not defended myself because I was larger and therefore more of a threat to her than she was to me. Others thought it was no big deal because she didn't do any "real damage". Exactly one person was supportive of me. Out of all our friends and family, only one of them saw me as the wounded party.

The next day she checked her self in for a suicide watch at our local psychiatric hospital. She made sure I knew through mutual friends. Three days later when she was out, I was back at home with her because "I couldn't do that to her". I went right back to the emotional abuse and manipulation because I was afraid she might actually hurt herself. I went through three more years of that before she left me for being queer.

So believe me, I know how real domestic violence against men is. I know how hard it is to get help. I know how deep those wounds are and how deep that poison runs. I get it 100%. And to me, the feminists whose work I read and the feminists I associate with, the toxic attitudes about manhood and toughness that make it so hard to get help are a very important part of the overall target of feminism.

Your post felt very personally accusatory. It felt like you were saying "How can you not see how hurtful and toxic these comments are to men who have actually suffered DV? How can you not see how insensitive you're being?" Your strike-throughs and footnotes seemed snide at best and sardonic at worst, as if suggesting that I can't see the difference between men with legitimate social grievances (and there are some real doozies!) and the bog standard, trilby-wearing MGTOW. Now, I don't know you super well, but I know you well enough to know that it wasn't your intention to make me feel that way. But once I was feeling that way, I couldn't articulate a response and I didn't want to lash out. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to return to the discussion in a rational way, so I bowed out in as short a way as I could to avoid saying something I did not mean. I'm sorry if my abruptness caused concern or offense.

Honestly? No. I never saw the #whataboutzemenz meme or the bathing in men's tears meme. I have never read Jezebel. I don't know who Lindy West is. Maybe I have been living under a rock for the last four years. Maybe that's a giant blind spot for me. In fact, it absolutely is. I have the luxury of not associating with the more toxic aspects of feminism or the social justice movement. I know that they exists, certainly. I've been called a brown shirt and told that I am exactly what's wrong with this country for refusing to call everyone right of Bernie Sanders a Nazi or suggesting Feminism would benefit from more robust internal criticism. But not nearly as often as I've been ridiculed because I did call the people waving black suns and odal runes Nazis. But I'm not often the target of the hate speech from the far left, so I don't see it if I don't go looking for it. The hate speech from the far right comes straight to my door every day. So if you've got good suggestions as to where I need to be looking (I do appreciate the suggestion of Ally Fogg, by the way), I'm very open to that.

My comment about feminism being concerned about male DV victims was a response to Jack Frost. I should ahve quoted them. I will do so now.

Quote
3) It's not perceived to be as threatening, because it's done by a woman, and therefore, according to the SJW enforced gender constructs, can't be threatening.  Something is only seen as bad or socially unacceptable when society tells you it's bad or socially unacceptable.  In other words, that idea that women can't be abusive or threatening is a social construct.

Woman hits man: Oh he must have done something to deserve it.
Man hits woman: How dare you ask if she did anything to deserve it, that's victim-blaming!

That comment looks a lot like blaming social justice advocates for the current state of abuse against men; using SJW in a way as it is often intended as derogatory, insisting that the relevant social constructs are enforced by social justice advocacy rather than having existed long before the modern social justice movement and the straw argument at the end. Jack Frost was arguing against a point that, as far as I can see, nobody in this thread was making; that violence is OK if a woman is doing it. If I just missed that comment, I will gladly be corrected. Seeing that argument was deeply frustrating. I'm sure that just about everyone who has seriously discussed and social issue from any position has dealt with being argued past. You can feel like you have to mow a field of strawmen before the discussion can move on. It's a common obfuscation tactic.

I'm sure other people have made that argument in other places, but they aren't talking to them. They are talking to us. And nobody here is making that argument. I suspect that is because we all know it's a bad argument.

Now, Having said all of that, Case, I don't think you're wrong. At all. Not even a little. "Are we doing a good job right now?" No. Not only no, but hell no. As I said, arguing past someone is a popular and effective obfuscation technique. It is not at all uncommon to enter an argument and demand that others answer for the worst arguments of those perceived to be on "their side". "This other blogger said the bad thing therefore your entire position is characterized by the bad thing" is an easy way to get your opposition to talk about what you want them to talk about rather than the issue at hand. Being toxic is a good way to get your ideological opposition to talk about the toxicity of "your side" and make more moderate voices feel slighted and, subsequently, sympathize with their more toxic "allies".

The "Kekistan" flag is nothing but a recolor of a Nazi war flag. But when not-at-all fascist or racist conservatives feel like they are getting lumped in with the actual-very-real Nazis, those Nazis pat them on the back and reassure them that the left just like calling people Nazis and they're clearly irrational and they don't have to engage with them. Then the not-at-all fascist or racist conservatives adopt the Kekistan flag now thoroughly convinced that it isn't a Nazi flag and wear being called a Nazi as a badge of pride. Before you know it, you can no longer tell who the real Nazis are in the crowd, and that is exactly how they want it.

I don't believe that's what Jack Frost was doing, but the effect of my response is not entirely different. By stopping to effectively preach to them to "EXPLAIN! FEMINISM!", I was not helping. If I mean to engage publicly in this discussion (the broader discussion of social values, not this specific discussion), I need to do better. I think You were right to call attention to it.
« Last Edit: 05 May 2018, 20:14 by pecoros7 »
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Dandi Andi

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Faye isn't even going that far.  Has Faye ever actually injured someone in this comic?  I can't recall a single time.  In the absence of any indication that anyone has ever been actually physically hurt by her, I don't think I can take her so-called violence as an indication that she's physically abusive. 

I don't think that doing lasting physical damage should be our standard of whether or not violence against someone is acceptable. My ex-wife punched me in the face. She didn't break my nose, but it did hurt and it was not OK. As HiFranc pointed out, Marten and Dora have expressed a preference for not getting punched.

"We like the fact that we can horse around with you a little bit without having to fear for our lives."

"Yeah. It makes you a lot more fun to be around."

And that was more than 3000 strips ago, before the strip started turning more realistic. And Faye's respect for people's boundaries has been highly selective. She has shown poor respect for Claire and Momo both. While some degree of violence absolutely can be acceptable in a relationship, it is only so if it happens within and with respect for the boundaries set by the people in that relationship.
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As got mentioned in passing above, the kind of people who operate shelters for male DV victims refuse to associate themselves with MRA types.

Marten did not move out or call the police or tell Faye to stop. Fact.

Faye did not take away Marten's money or drive away his friends. Fact.

Marten is not a good judge of what's going on because he does not have a normal ability to stand up for himself. I cite his mother's first visit. We don't have to agree with Marten about the seriousness of Faye's punches.
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awgiedawgie

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Also, one unfortunate problem that can complicate matters - and this may or may not be the case with Marten - is that some people gravitate toward abusive friends or partners simply because they feel they deserve to be treated that way, or that they don't deserve to be treated any better. As I mentioned in another thread, my ex-wife left me for a man who routinely beat her and rarely let her out of the house. Because she was convinced that she wasn't good enough to be treated nice. And no amount of effort on my part could convince her otherwise. She felt she deserved to be mistreated, and she knew she wasn't going to get that from me.


No, this tendency in no way excuses Faye's behaviour, but it might explain why Marten - considering his childhood - may not have objected more forcefully, or why he couldn't object more forcefully, to Faye's actions. I really hope that this does not sabotage the healthy relationship he has so far enjoyed with Claire.
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Morituri

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I wasn't EVEN talking about lasting damage.  I don't think Faye has ever left so much as a bruise on anybody.  She did dent Corpse Witch with a punch, but it would have taken a better-than-average person to resist that temptation.

In fact, and this may just be not having noticed it on my part or not remembering it, I don't recall any other single time one of her "punches" has ever actually landed, on anybody. 

She makes threats, a lot, and that's not cool. But I just don't see her engaging in actual violence except very very seldom and  when very badly provoked.
« Last Edit: 06 May 2018, 02:15 by Morituri »
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awgiedawgie

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For the record, she bruised Marten repeatedly. I think I recall twice he remarked (maybe joking, maybe not) that he thought his arm was broken, and once he thought he might have a concussion. She also put a huge bruise on Hannerelore's arm because she was drunk and didn't know who she was hitting (it was meant for Marten's Dad). She gave Raven a full body flip in retaliation for tickling, and got in a fight with Penny at CoD. And she threw Angus across the barroom just for talking to her. None of those were what I would call "badly provoked".


She beat Clinton up with his own hand once, but he deserved that.


There may be other instances I don't remember right now, but I don't have time to look for them this morning - I'm meeting family for breakfast.
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DaiJB

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...AND she knocked out Marten that time he was being drunk and highly unpleasant - I can't remember the strip, but I can remember the follow-up, where Faye blames his injury on "OWLS"...  :-D

Edit: Found it! Number 1818.
« Last Edit: 06 May 2018, 06:05 by DaiJB »
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For the record, she bruised Marten repeatedly. I think I recall twice he remarked (maybe joking, maybe not) that he thought his arm was broken, and once he thought he might have a concussion. She also put a huge bruise on Hannerelore's arm because she was drunk and didn't know who she was hitting (it was meant for Marten's Dad). She gave Raven a full body flip in retaliation for tickling, and got in a fight with Penny at CoD. And she threw Angus across the barroom just for talking to her. None of those were what I would call "badly provoked".


She beat Clinton up with his own hand once, but he deserved that.


There may be other instances I don't remember right now, but I don't have time to look for them this morning - I'm meeting family for breakfast.

Question, without going into the morality or nature of those instances (and once you have finished breakfast, naturally), how many were recent and how many were back in the days of cartoon logic applying more (e.g. vespa-avenger, random monks, Scorn being capable of physically hurling a body through space etc.)?

Without excusing abusive behaviour, it does seem that Faye as a character gets caught out by the tone of the comic having shifted over 3000 strips, and that behaviour that at one point, while not exactly acceptable, was not as consequential as it would be now. Pintsize is another example of this (who seems to get a free pass more often than not), as his earlier behaviour might often be seen to step over a line he's now more careful about. But Faye's violence, it is true, still gets bought up in-comic as part of her character, so it's reasonable to consider her in relation to it. How much of her violence is recent?

Again, that's a question I want to ask neutrally- I don't mean to defend her violence, I'm just curious about how it has developed alongside the changing tone of the comic.
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awgiedawgie

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...AND she knocked out Marten that time he was being drunk and highly unpleasant - I can't remember the strip, but I can remember the follow-up, where Faye blames his injury on "OWLS"...  ;D

Edit: Found it! Number 1818.
Good memory. That one had slipped my mind earlier.


Question, without going into the morality or nature of those instances (and once you have finished breakfast, naturally), how many were recent and how many were back in the days of cartoon logic applying more (e.g. vespa-avenger, random monks, Scorn being capable of physically hurling a body through space etc.)?
[...]
Again, that's a question I want to ask neutrally- I don't mean to defend her violence, I'm just curious about how it has developed alongside the changing tone of the comic.
I'll just make a list, but it'll take a little while.
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SpanielBear

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I'll just make a list, but it'll take a little while.

That's really good of you. Just a general idea would be good- my bias is towards the majority being early in the comc's run, but I don't want to make assumptions.

I don't think for a moment that the difference in tone makes the depictions of violence easier to see, but in discussing Faye's underlying character and the extent to which she is a bully rather than a source of slapstick it would be useful.
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Mr_Rose

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Yes, as I recall, Faye managed to clear about fifteen feet when she threw Angus across the bar. Assuming he is of normal human build and not made of, say, fluff and helium, that would have to be some kind of world record….
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Well, I've finished breakfast.  8-)

I've always viewed Faye's violence, particularly in the early days, as cartoon violence. That is, something to get a laugh out of ala Road Runner and Coyote, not something to wring my hands over.

However, given that you can draw a line of character development all the way from those early comics to the most recent, it's probably more useful to view it more seriously, at least for the sake of discussion.

So if we do that, how do you view Faye (a Mini Poll)?

a) Faye's behaviour has been inexcusable and irredeemable.
b) Faye's behaviour has been terrible, but perhaps forgivable (if not excusable) given her past.
c) Faye's behaviour has been terrible, but she is actively working on improving, and if she succeeds, then she will be (more) likable.
d) Faye's behaviour is just a part of her friendship dynamic, and is not as bad as everyone is making out.
e) A little bit from each of ?, ?, ....
f) Something else (specify).

And how do you feel about Marten's friendship with Faye?

1) Marten should have abandoned her long ago.
2) Marten deserves better, and hopefully things are improving.
3) Marten gets credit for seeing past her bad behaviour - Faye wouldn't be where she is now without him.
4) Marten is fine, they've always had a terrific friendship. And what close friendship hasn't had the odd rocky moment?
5) Something else (specify).

Curious to hear people's thoughts. My own will come later.
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(Snip)

So if we do that, how do you view Faye (a Mini Poll)?

a) Faye's behaviour has been inexcusable and irredeemable.
b) Faye's behaviour has been terrible, but perhaps forgivable (if not excusable) given her past.
c) Faye's behaviour has been terrible, but she is actively working on improving, and if she succeeds, then she will be (more) likable.
d) Faye's behaviour is just a part of her friendship dynamic, and is not as bad as everyone is making out.
e) A little bit from each of ?, ?, ....
f) Something else (specify).

And how do you feel about Marten's friendship with Faye?

1) Marten should have abandoned her long ago.
2) Marten deserves better, and hopefully things are improving.
3) Marten gets credit for seeing past her bad behaviour - Faye wouldn't be where she is now without him.
4) Marten is fine, they've always had a terrific friendship. And what close friendship hasn't had the odd rocky moment?
5) Something else (specify).

(/Snip)


The problem with taking all of her actions as character defining is that it leads to dissonance. Because if, without context, someone was described as having done all the things Faye has done, then I'd feel they were a B at the very least- her violence is repetitive, generally remorseless and unprovoked. But that is completely at odds with how she is portrayed outside of that- in most of her appearances we do seem to be expected to see her, narratively, as sympathetic. Similarly Marten, if he were a real-life victim of Faye's abuse owes her nothing and is a firm 2 or even a 1. But again, all their other interactions show a genuine, healthy friendship that we seem to be expected to take as being authentic.

I think Jeph (now) is too good of a story teller and a designer of characters to make a mistake about this; to create a relationship and characters that are fundamentally unrealistic. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, there must be some background reason behind that being the case here. So for me, drawing a distinction between Faye as a character and her extreme violence as slapstick is the only way to resolve the confusion. It's a stylistic choice that has changed as the comic has changed, and the extreme violence is an artefact of that, not a aspect of Faye's "serious" character. That's why knowing a timeline would be useful- can we find a point at which the comic becomes more grounded in terms of characters and consequences, and does Faye's violence continue to be egregious after that point?

And once again, I'm not trying to say that any of this makes violence okay, or that any particular reaction to it is over-sensitive or wrong. What I do want to work out is whether slapstick violence explains (not excuses) Faye's previous actions, or if in fact she should be viewed as a fundamentally violent person, who abuses others and leaves them traumatised.
« Last Edit: 06 May 2018, 15:42 by SpanielBear »
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I don't think Faye has ever left so much as a bruise on anybody.

There's a strip I don't have the number for where Marten mentions an ice pack in the freezer dedicated to treating injuries from Faye.

The time she knocked Marten unconscious was arguably self-defense although people at the time pointed out that anyone that drunk could have been put on the ground with her little finger.
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The problem with taking all of her actions as character defining is that it leads to dissonance. Because if, without context, someone was described as having done all the things Faye has done, then I'd feel they were a B at the very least- her violence is repetitive, generally remorseless and unprovoked. But that is completely at odds with how she is portrayed outside of that- in most of her appearances we do seem to be expected to see her, narratively, as sympathetic. Similarly Marten, if he were a real-life victim of Faye's abuse owes her nothing and is a firm 2 or even a 1. But again, all their other interactions show a genuine, healthy friendship that we seem to be expected to take as being authentic.

I think Jeph (now) is too good of a story teller and a designer of characters to make a mistake about this; to create a relationship and characters that are fundamentally unrealistic. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, there must be some background reason behind that being the case here. So for me, drawing a distinction between Faye as a character and her extreme violence as slapstick is the only way to resolve the confusion. It's a stylistic choice that has changed as the comic has changed, and the extreme violence is an artefact of that, not a aspect of Faye's "serious" character.

I tend to agree, but another possible interpretation is that one of the assumptions is not quite true - either the violence wasn't nearly as bad as all that (and perhaps was exaggerated for comedic effect) or the friendship isn't as healthy as we think (I'm disinclined to believe this).

There's a strip I don't have the number for where Marten mentions an ice pack in the freezer dedicated to treating injuries from Faye.

Along the same lines, this could have been simply a joke at Faye's expense.

The time she knocked Marten unconscious was arguably self-defense although people at the time pointed out that anyone that drunk could have been put on the ground with her little finger.

I think she can be forgiven for having neither the presence of mind nor the bravery to just use her little finger and see if that works out okay for her. As far as I am concerned, the end outcome was good, and that's all that matters.
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There's a strip I don't have the number for where Marten mentions an ice pack in the freezer dedicated to treating injuries from Faye.
That was 1681


Along the same lines, this could have been simply a joke at Faye's expense.
I'm inclined to think Marten meant it. I'm barely 10% through the archives, and I've already seen Faye punch Marten four times (once he thought his arm was broken, and once he thought he might have a concussion), punched Dora once, knocked out Agent Turing (yeah, that needed to be done to save Pintsize, but still...), and body-flipped Raven. Plus done a fair amount of threatening to several people. So at that point at least, Fayemergencies are a fairly regular occurrence. (There's also stuff with Pintsize and some of his friends, but they deserved it.)


Of course, she has also repeatedly resisted the urge to punch people, and has more than once expressed remorse for how she treats people - most notably Marten and Raven. In my opinion, even in just the first 450 strips, she has made noticeable progress toward being less violent. It's still her first instinct, but she seems to be getting better at controlling it.
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Did anyone notice that Bubbles wasn't blushing as much as she kept giving Faye a back rub? It means she was becoming comfortable touching and being close to Faye.

Faye, for the love of all that is holy, don't fuck this up.
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...and Bubbles loves Faye.

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Amen. Bubbles has baggage from hell but a track record of working to overcome it. Bubbles will be loyal to the extent Marten is or even more. Faye, this is a great partner for you.
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Me, I'm hoping Faye gives it some thought, goes back into the shop and just kisses the hell out of Bubbles. "Bubs, bend down, I have to tell you a secret..." *smoochhhhh*

Yeah, yeah, I know, not realistic.  :laugh:

Hmm, that reminds me... "closer, let me whisper in your ear, say the words you long to heeeeeeeaaar, I'm in love with you...ooo ooo ooo ooo..."
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...and Bubbles loves Faye.

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Is it what Bubbles wants to hear? We know she has Feelings but may not be ready to process them. (Is anyone ever really ready?)

I had missed the comment at the bottom at first. "His spine might be wobbly, but it's still a spine".
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Marten was the best possible choice for one important reason. He grew up in an environment where he was exposed (no pun intended) to just about every possible relationship style. Same-sex human-robot? Faye had to have known he was guaranteed to accept the idea without a blink.

On the eternal abuse side, there's more than one way to take her treatment of Pintsize. What does it mean ethically to hit someone who doesn't feel pain and can have dents just popped out?
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