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2019-05-15, 03:25 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
I think we can agree here. This is all a bit of exchanged thoughtlessnesses. Dora and Tai should have thought of a bar being a problem. Fate should have said goodbye (I don't feel it is at all clear if she did), and no one owes each other a fruit basket.
I do appreciate that, but thank you for clarifying it. I still believe that it is somewhat inconsistent with her previous behaviour, where drunk people came back to the apartment with Marten and had a small party also with booze and she was completely okay with it. I'm NOT saying that recovering addicts don't have peaks and troughs where some days are better or worse than others because they absolutely do; I just wish there was some indication of Faye going through that rather than being okay with one and suddenly not with the other, it would make the story flow better and the swings seem less jarring.
I first heard it as a boxing term - kids' gloves only weigh 6oz, compared to adults 10-14oz, so it's 'nicer' to be hit with them
See, I was wondering if I was being unnecessarily cynical - Jeph, recovering alcoholic, writing a comic about how people should always be really nice to recovering alcoholics regardless of their previous actions and offences? I mean no ill-will to the guy in any way, so I accept that I should reconsider that idea. Possible it's that which so irked me in the beginning, for unjust reason.
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2019-05-15, 03:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2009
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Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
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2019-05-15, 04:15 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2009
- Location
- NYC
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
Makes sense From a phtsics standpoint. Force = Mass*acceleration, so a punch thrown with kid gloves would be anywhere from 42% to 60% as strong as the same punch thrown with adult gloves.
Or. Mayne I have to do the actual math because I'm not taking the weight of the fist itself into account...
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2019-05-15, 07:30 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2010
- Location
- Toledo, Ohio
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Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
There's a fundamental difference between "we are in the same place, and you happen to be drinking" and "here we are, in the place that exists solely for drinking". Avoiding alcohol is a lot easier in an environment that is not literally constructed for the sole purpose of providing you with it.
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2019-05-16, 06:48 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
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2019-05-16, 08:37 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2008
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
So... Sven and May, huh.
Sure, I'll ship it.Avatar by araveugnitsuga.
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2019-05-16, 09:57 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- England
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
I've spent a little bit of time introspecting on this one; I'm obviously very much at odds with the vast majority of the thread, and I'm not always able to accurately justify my perception which means I've probably missed something.
Spoiler: Because I've spent a lot of time on this subject and no doubt some of you are tired of itThe bolded part is, I think, what is the outline of my issue. I don't dislike Faye; she's a very good character in the comic that has organic interaction with the others and generates interesting plotlines... But at the same time she isn't a very nice character and never has been. She's not a "bad person" and I'm not reproachful towards her because she's wicked/sinful/malicious or any of those other things, but she is rude, crude, unpleasant and has mistreated just about everyone that she knows including herself, and because of that last part everyone seems to have forgiven and forgotten in a way that I feel is unrealistically 'easy'.
I think I'm still waiting for some kind of laser-guided karma to strike her, just like Hollywood always tells me it will; that she'll have it pointed out that she was a **** to all of her friends and instead of making amends she avoided them for several months until they offered her a proverbial olive branch. And then she continued to call them names and threaten them with (admittedly comical) violence when instead she might want to reconsider advice about burning bridges.
TL,DR: She's still a cranky, abrasive person and I'm being snarky because she doesn't seem to have learned anything after her ordeal. I'm expecting some character growth about how her relationship with alcohol is reflected in her relationships with other people, when in all probability Jeph just hasn't gotten around to writing it yet.
At least I haven't started a petition demanding that "a team of competent writers" are brought int to rewrite andrefilmrepublishthe previous two seasonsthe last filmthe last 500 strips.
Isn't kid-skin a Biblical reference? Possibly the contemporary version might be silk gloves.
Possibly that is a part of her discomfort - as redundant as it sounds, she is treating the bar as "a bar". She was sat on a stool, at the counter, looking at the tender and asking for Beer But Not Beer - it's perfectly understandable that engaging in that sort of familiar habit has also stirred up the other habit of Having A Drink.
I'm no psychologist, but I wonder if, had she just gone and sat at a table with Dora and Tai, looking out of the window with her back to the bar and drinking coke or lemonade, it would have broken the "cycle" of "going to the bar and drinking alcohol" and have been more like being a less stressful place like a restaurant of café?~ CAUTION: May Contain Weasels ~
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2019-05-16, 10:20 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2004
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
I think Jeph's intended evaluation of Faye, just like Jeph's intended evaluation of Brun and probably Bubbles, is somewhat skewed by Jeph's apparent belief that women threatening violence are inherently funny and endearing (see: all three I just mentioned).
I don't think Faye did anything wrong in the last few strips, with the possible exception of expecting Sven to automatically leave a public place because she demanded it. Neither did Tai, Dora, Marten, or indeed Sven.Orth Plays: Currently Baldur's Gate II
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2019-05-16, 12:44 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
Heh. This time I needed a reminder that this was a sitcom. Normally, In Real Life (TM) I find people who are overly concerned with someone else getting special privilege are 1) usually wrong, and 2) it says a whole lot more about them than those about whom they are complaining. However, good point, this is a sitcom (not Hollywood, but the same rules apply), and we do expect laser-guided karma. I had forgotten about that for a moment. Thanks for the reminder.
To that point, the thing is-- the alcoholism narrative does not fit into that story structure very well. Hollywood storytelling wants a protagonist and a villain. Perhaps the villain starts out seeming like a friend, and then you get that extra juicy sense of betrayal thing going on. At the climax, the tide turns from favoring the villain to favoring the protagonist, and the villain is vanquished/humiliated/receives their karma and the protagonist is bathed in cheers and upbeat music while the credits roll. In the alcoholism story there are just protagonists. One of them starts doing things badly. They start hurting themselves, hurting others, hurting the other protagonist. Then, at the climax, they get help, and start turning their life around, and reasonable people (including that hurt other-protagonist) treat it as a positive step. They then start being someone you hopefully want to see succeed again. Their life undoubtedly sucks*, but you can't really call it guided karma (and honestly if they did get a whole lot of karma, hopefully that would feel equally as unsatisfying if it happened after they started turning their life around). Instead there is just a slow, steady progression back from the dark place the were, and the functional, helpful, decent member of society you want them to be.
*and here we have an unrealistic part of the story in Faye's situation. Although she and Bubbles are supposedly poor right now, we don't really see her suffering. May is really living the more realistic rehabilitation-story experience, complete with life that kind of sucks and a lot of doors closed to her because of her past.
That's one of the reasons Hollywood doesn't do crime well unless it's murder/rape/other unforgivable things. If we see the story of an ex con, they either have to be falsely convicted, been stealing bread to feed a starving child, be an imminently excusable crime (whatever context it may be), or maybe (maybe) an inexcusable one that happens before we meet this person ("yeah, I killed a man, but that was in the past and I'm trying to be good from here on out" works if we never met the person killed, and they don't resonate as real). We only want to see basically good (or we can tell ourselves they are) people get things going right for them by the end, or intrinsically bad people get totally destroyed (and then forgotten about). There's no place for the complexities of a real sinner working on redemption because that's rooting that instead of the villain getting what's coming to them, they stop being someone we thing has something coming to them.
Which is a long way of saying that I understand where you are coming from, when viewing the situation from a Hollywood story. I just don't think this story (and it's reasonable that it be one Jeph wants to tell) fits that structure very well, and that's where (IMO) the biggest issue is.
I'm no psychologist, but I wonder if, had she just gone and sat at a table with Dora and Tai, looking out of the window with her back to the bar and drinking coke or lemonade, it would have broken the "cycle" of "going to the bar and drinking alcohol" and have been more like being a less stressful place like a restaurant of café?
Oh, definitely. The sliding scale of comic seriousness is an issue with that particular trait. Kinda like how violence towards pintsize is inherently more allowable than towards anyone else, simply because he clearly exists in a more cartoonish world.Last edited by Willie the Duck; 2019-05-16 at 12:46 PM.
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2019-05-16, 07:52 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2009
- Location
- NYC
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
I still posit that Brun only threatened Clinton with the (fact that she had access to a) harpoon in the first place because she was perceiving Clinton's attitude as a threat. Weird hill to die on but whatever.
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2019-05-16, 08:46 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2013
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
That was the intent, yes, and also absolutely why the shotgun was wildly inappropriate. She flat out told Clinton she perceived him as being belligerent and hostile, and was prepared to deal with any shenanigans he got into. Even the harpoon is a bit over the top for making that point, but a Shotgun changes it from "warning" to "aggressive threat".
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
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2019-05-16, 11:20 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
- Location
- The Lakes
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
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2019-05-17, 12:21 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2005
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
Is the shotgun/harpoon going to become Jeph's "Loss"? It seems like a scab that people just can't stop picking at.
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2019-05-17, 12:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2008
- Location
- Germany
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
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2019-05-17, 12:45 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2006
- Location
- Dancin' away
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
I continue to ship Sven and May.
i am going to make it through this year
if it kills me
i am going to make it though this year
if it kills me
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2019-05-17, 01:57 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2004
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Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
No, the earliest known reference to the expression of treating something with kid gloves is from the late 19th century. Far too recent to be biblical.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KidskinHark! An avatar drawn by Kate Beaton!
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2019-05-17, 02:33 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- England
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
I'm down for this too, but I'm also kind of sad that Momo's crush on Sven was never continued, too.
Maybe it could still happen? Sven and May agree to trying a "non car-crash" date (similar to Sven and Hannelore) so that Sven can practise non-sexual relationships and May can experience the joy of not being a wage-slave for a few hours, and then May casually mentions it to Momo... That could be fun.~ CAUTION: May Contain Weasels ~
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2019-05-17, 06:49 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2009
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2019-05-17, 09:09 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2004
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
In the same way Faye threatening to stab Marten way, way, WAY back in the first strip where she ever appeared does, as a data point in favor of "Jeph thinks it's hilarious when women threaten violence and doesn't understand why it's impacting anyone's opinions of his characters."
Also Jeph stuck in a callback to it it only last week, so it seems kind of odd to be complaining that it hasn't been forgotten.Orth Plays: Currently Baldur's Gate II
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2019-05-19, 05:57 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2008
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
That applies to action show and many dramas, but it doesn't really apply to most sitcoms. Most sitcoms don't even have an antagonist, much less a villain.
Of course, some people might not agree with you that QC is the webcomic equivalent of a sitcom, but even accepting that it is, I still can't agree with the rest of your analysis.
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2019-05-20, 02:35 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2014
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
I feel as though May's demonstrated approach fails to account for the significant possibility that the response will be horror and discomfort, followed by an appeal to relevant authorities. I know people (particularly women) who consider such direct advances to be a particularly salient offense against their sense of ease.
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2019-05-20, 03:10 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- England
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
Hopefully that is the punchline? Sven is getting advice from someone who "has it all figured out"; That person is a robot who has no functional genitals, and whose chronic and uncontrollable impulsiveness suggests that it's probably a good thing that she doesn't.
He's conflicted, and May is like the little devil on his shoulder contrasted to Hannelore's little Angel, each urging him into some sort of sexual depravity or responsibility, respectively.
The alternative is that May is acting as Jeph's mouthpiece again. I kind of doubt that, as he usually doesn't do that in matters so shallow as picking up a date, but anything is possible in a world of sentient iPads.~ CAUTION: May Contain Weasels ~
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2019-05-20, 03:25 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2006
- Location
- Ashland, Kentucky
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
but we know May got the most basic body they could give her on release from robot jail
so is she even equipped to bang?Ponies not only make ME want to be a better person than I was before they entered my life, they make me want to HELP OTHERS be better people too.
And that is a GOOD thing by any definition.
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2019-05-20, 03:40 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- England
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
She doesn't have genitals, if that's what you mean. She has in the past, however, suggested that she could make use of her hands and mouth if she needed to (and could find a decent pair of soft gloves - the joints in her bare fingers are likely to "pinch" apparently...)
~ CAUTION: May Contain Weasels ~
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2019-05-20, 03:41 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2009
- Location
- NYC
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
Well I'm giving May the benefit of the doubt (shocking) and assuming she isn't assuming Sven is starting with "wanna f--k," but, rather, has gotten to the point in the interaction where he's confirming that the woman does, indeed, want to f--k.
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2019-05-20, 05:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2005
- Location
- Bergen
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2019-05-20, 05:34 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2009
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien, 1955
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2019-05-20, 05:40 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2007
- Location
- England
- Gender
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
I seem to recall that Sven has mentioned that he has actually tried this method, and it does in fact work for him (presumably because's he's a hot, rich musician.)
I think he was talking to Marten, who dryly responded something like "Well, don't YOU have a blessed life"? It sounds very familiar... But it also might have been a Something*Positive strip, they have had the same discussion once or twice.Last edited by Wraith; 2019-05-20 at 05:40 AM.
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2019-05-20, 05:51 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2009
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2019-05-20, 05:52 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2009
- Location
- NYC
Re: Questionable Content 14: "I Deserve A Fancy Butt Emblem."
This is a sitcom in comic form. I'm always going to assume incompetence and/or sarcastic productivity before belligerence.