OOTS #959 - The Discussion Thread

[Spiryt]

Not actually all that high really, if I have my maths right the chance of two non-identical siblings getting the exact same chromosomes from their parents is something like 1/(4.5305458e+70).

As such having fangs is more likely that you are identical to a sibling born as a non-identical set (assuming the numbers above).

As such we can safely assume that Roy and Eric were not identical at a chromosome level (though we should avoid making absolute statements around that).

Yeah, 'quantum' was of course exaggeration, I was just interested if those were some actual cases, or just probability estimates.

[Amphiox]

When I mentioned endurance running I am talking about distances far greater than even typical ultraman competitions.

There is one very well documented data-point at the very far extreme that I base this on. In the very worst of extreme physiological challenges, like famines and the like, women do much better than men. Their mortality is much lower. The average female possesses several physiological advantages in extreme endurance that eventually outweigh the average male's advantages in muscle mass and power and strength. There comes a point where the extra testosterone ceases to be an advantage and becomes a disadvantage.

When you push extreme endurance athletics to the point when the physiological stress approaches the highest extremes, it is inevitable that an inflection point must come when the women start to win. At the very least the men will start dropping dead from over exertion and the women will then overtake them, though I suspect the real inflection point will come sooner than that. Performance will degrade before you get to the "drop dead" point unless self-destructive psychology gets into the mix (which in the case of some men and athletics could happen!).

It is notable that the more endurance is involved in a sport, the smaller the average difference between the performance between the top men and the top women.

I am proposing the not unreasonable hypothesis that at some point the gap narrows to zero and reverses.

[Keltest]

When I mentioned endurance running I am talking about distances far greater than even typical ultraman competitions.

It is rather impressive that humans can kill animals by chasing them to death.

[Socksy]

/2 cents that I'll probably regret
That said, the dismissive and angry tone that the Giant has taken in the face of criticism is really disheartening. It's ironic that he promoted his forums has a place to hear and learn about viewpoints other than our own, and yet he hasn't allowed even a hint of nuance in his own opinions. No, stories without moral messages are NOT inherently porn or escapism, or even pointless. Sometimes, stories can be fun, just for the sake of fun! Not all should be, of course, but I really don't like the superior and condescending tone when discussing alternate, and totally legitimate, viewpoints.

Reading some of his posts on mobile, unable to see the poster name, I was wondering who such a rude and intolerant poster was, and almost called them out on it in a quote before noticing who it was.

But that respect is getting eroded as quickly as it's being created by the way that the Giant has been, frankly, mean to anyone who disagrees with him on not just the Big Issues that OOTS is taking on where it might be justified (beyond just this strip - issues like racism in gaming conveyed via "kill the green monsters" mentality, etc), but ones that boil down to personal media preference.

OOTS is still a comic I greatly enjoy, and I look forward to the new online strips and the Kickstarter stories when they come! But the nasty and petulant way that the Giant interaCTs[ ... ]I honestly don't feel comfortable with how its creator chooses to treat other people.

I agree here, too.

Because this reads that anyone who ever doesn't like what is ever said should leave and never come back - which is a sure fire way to end up with no audience (except maybe a hatedom)

I also agree he re. I felt like the post of mine which he replied to read like "Even though the forums tell me you're not old enough to vote, you should have fully formed political opinions on feminism in modern literature and they should also be exactly the same as mine".

Most men are actually The Flash in disguise.

Once I'm off my awful phone, can I sig this?

And perhaps Niu isn't seen as a rival, perhaps due to an expectation that Paladins don't play the dating game.. they just get married out of the blue.

OW.

I'm reasonably confident that a plurality of us find the word "fornication" amusing on some level.

hehehe, fornication

EDIT: Struggling to come up with an appropriate response, but is it really so sexist?

Yes. At leastQ, i think it is.

[dancrilis]

Yeah, 'quantum' was of course exaggeration, I was just interested if those were some actual cases, or just probability estimates.

Just to correct my maths I believe the more correct number I should have used for my example is closer to (1/6.7789382e+25), which is significantly lower than my initial estimate ... meh oh well.

[Keltest]

Once I'm off my awful phone, can I sig this?

Please do.

[Lissou]

Which would likely lead to woman being more promiscuous (due to the availability of partners) ... and hence insults relating to sexuality amongst woman perhaps being more common.

Why? If being more promiscous is the norm, why would it be something to insult each other for? You're still starting from the principle that women having sex is wrong, so women having more sex is wrong. Plus a larger male-to-female ratios has no reason to universally make women more promiscuous. One can easily imagine that some women who are into casual sex, would enjoy the freedom of having it with more partners due to the increased options, while some women who aren't would simply see the increased number of partners as a reason to be more picky about it, since they don't have to "settle for" someone out of fear of missing out on the only chance they got.


About the "fastest person on Earth thing", these things are really subjective. Faster doing? what? For how long? In what conditions? The way we test it is very limited, by design, and only gives us an answer to "which person specifically trained for the task we created managed to do it the fastest?"
But presumably even during the short amount of time a race takes, their speed fluctuates. It has to, since they start motionless, at some point they must increase their speed, and depending on the length of the event, they might reach their maximum speed and eventually slow down. or they might finish without reaching their peak speed.

Note that when an event is longer, the people taking part in it pace themselves accordingly. They don't sprint the whole way during a marathon, for instance. Which means that at no given time are they as fast as they would be when sprinting. Yet they must be faster overall, or pacing yourself wouldn't be a technique used. That means sprinting then having to slow down yields worse results.
The only thing we do is measuring average speeds of a given runner over a giver distance. Even the same person won't be perfectly consistent in that.

If you take people with a similar level of fitness, and you ask the question "who is faster?" the answer will most likely still be "it depends". At any rate, there is a much wider gap between athletes and non-athletes than there is between the average man and the average woman.

[dancrilis]

Why? If being more promiscous is the norm, why would it be something to insult each other for?

That is simply observation that I have made, when sex was something to be shunned and not spoken of (or the good old days) calling someone a sexually charged insult was particularly offensive. Now that it is less shunned and more spoken of such language might not even be considered insulting - unless used in an insulting way.

You're still starting from the principle that women having sex is wrong, so women having more sex is wrong.

What?
I don't care about other peoples sexual habits - unless they mention them to me, at which point they annoy me because I didn't ask (unless the conversation moves that way naturally).

Have as much or as little sex as you like - feel free, it's not my business and I have trouble caring about things that are not my business - even when I know I should care of solely for the sake of empathy.

[Tom Lehmann]

To everyone: If you don't like the comic, stop reading it. If you don't like the moderation rules, go somewhere else. But I'm done responding to all this whining over one damn page. Suck it up. Accept that not everything you read is going to be 100% in line with what you want it to be, whether that is in message or execution.

On the meta-level, I applaud your desire to portray your lead female character as someone who dresses appropriately with respect to what she is doing and who engages in less "slut-shaming".

As a reader, I liked the scene, but I did think it came a bit out of the blue. In particular, I am confused as to whether this change is occurring in-story (character growth) or on the meta-level (as a "character writing upgrade"), where we are now being asked as readers to approach this strip with a mind-set of this is how Haley has always been. As Kish and others have noted, the language in the final panels of this strip is similar to that used in 198, referring to an art upgrade, where we, as readers, were asked to accept those art changes as the new baseline "reality" of the strip.

You may believe that your intent was clear; I'm just dense; and my feedback should be ignored. Or, my confusion may get addressed in a future strip and I should simply be patient. I'm offering my feedback as a single data point (one of many contradictory ones, I'm sure ;-). Deal with it as you wish.

[lio45]

Yeah, 'quantum' was of course exaggeration, I was just interested if those were some actual cases, or just probability estimates.

No, of course not! Those "probability estimates" were invented by myself on the spot. Very long canines are certainly incredibly less unlikely to show up spontaneously than green skin pigmentation, though. But the difference of ~10^30 between the two in order of magnitude that I had is just something I picked for the sake of the example... (For the record, they're both so unlikely that it's all but guaranteed they've never occurred in the history of humanity up to now, and so is non-twin siblings with the exact same genetic makeup.)

But it's all "possible". For what it means to be "possible".

I mean, in practice it's about the same level of "possible" as seeing an untrained non-central-African woman born at sea level turn out to be able to run the 100 m faster than Usain Bolt.

[The Giant]

That said, the dismissive and angry tone that the Giant has taken in the face of criticism is really disheartening. It's ironic that he promoted his forums has a place to hear and learn about viewpoints other than our own, and yet he hasn't allowed even a hint of nuance in his own opinions. No, stories without moral messages are NOT inherently porn or escapism, or even pointless. Sometimes, stories can be fun, just for the sake of fun! Not all should be, of course, but I really don't like the superior and condescending tone when discussing alternate, and totally legitimate, viewpoints.

I still read OOTS, I still enjoy OOTS, and this new strip gave me more respect for the comic than I'd previously had! But that respect is getting eroded as quickly as it's being created by the way that the Giant has been, frankly, mean to anyone who disagrees with him on not just the Big Issues that OOTS is taking on where it might be justified (beyond just this strip - issues like racism in gaming conveyed via "kill the green monsters" mentality, etc), but ones that boil down to personal media preference.

OOTS is still a comic I greatly enjoy, and I look forward to the new online strips and the Kickstarter stories when they come! But the nasty and petulant way that the Giant interacts with forumites is really frustratingly immature, especially when he has the option to ignore the small minority of posters who will always complain about everything.

Part of the reason I've always supported OOTS when I have the spare money is that not only is it a comic that I love, but I respected the hell out of an author who truly tried to do his fans right - no ads on the site, keeping independent and not selling it to some syndicate, etc. That's a great business model, and I've always been proud to support the little guy. It's making me question giving more of my business for future books and other projects, not because of the comic, but because I honestly don't feel comfortable with how its creator chooses to treat other people.

Here's the thing: This particular strip is largely about me. It's about changes I've made in my personal outlook, and how I'm choosing to try to correct them going forward. It's the result of a lot of introspection and self-examination and hard looks at what I was putting out into the world. That a certain vein of criticism was valid, and reflected poorly on me as a person. It involved difficult admissions that I wasn't the person I wanted to be; that I had failed to live up to my own standards and needed to make changes.

And the response, from many? "WE DON'T PAY YOU TO THINK! DRAW SOMEONE FIGHTING A DRAGON PLZ! MAKE IT FUNNY!"

No. That's not what I'm doing here. I don't care about the same things some readers care about, and you know what? That's allowed. I'm allowed to tell my story on my own terms, using my own metrics of what I find important—and I'm further allowed to discuss those metrics when and where appropriate. Do I really need to tack, "In my opinion…" on the front of every statement I make about storytelling? This is a free work posted on the internet, and you're discussing it on a free message board; the price of that is that I get to set the rules, both in the comic and on the forum. No one else gets a vote. This isn't a corporate media site where you can influence the decision makers through financial pressure.

And that extends double to me as a person: no one here gets a vote on who I am or how I live my life or what my opinions are—or what my temper is like. If it's more therapeutic for me to get angry and post a rant than to bottle it up and let it fester, then that's what I'm going to do, and I'll accept whatever business consequences come from that. But I'm not going to pretend to be thrilled at the awful things people say to me just to keep a few more readers. On a purely practical level, it is almost impossible for me to write comedy when I'm angry, so venting on the message board directly leads to more comics. I am literally writing this post right now so I can get it out of my head and go write a script.

If you need me to be completely cool and collected at all times in the face of this sort of response, then I am going to consistently disappoint you. If you can't support me unless I never get mad, ever, no matter what is said to me, then no, you shouldn't support me. Because I wrote and deleted about 12 far angrier responses to pendell before I posted the one I posted. That's as good as it gets for me. That's the apex of calm. Heck, even this response is several steps calmer than my first draft.

So if that's still not good enough for you, then yeah, by all means: stop supporting me. It will be better for everyone in the long run. But if you actually value the truly independent business model, then you should respect that I'm willing to let this thing rise or fall as it may without pandering to anyone—even those who want me to change my personal temperament. This is who I am; this is what you get when you come to my playground. Take it or leave it. If that means it fails someday, then I'm OK with that.

(I would also like to point out, more generally, that the people who were concerned about LGBT+ and female representation in the comic—you know, the people who I ended up deciding were right? Not one of them threatened to leave or withdraw financial support over it. If one wants me to listen, ultimatums or passive-aggressive "wondering" about whether one will keep reading is not the way to go about it. It is, in fact, the way for me to decide that the speaker is not worth the trouble and I can safely ignore them.)

[Lissou]

What?

It only makes sense to insult people by pointing out things that are bad or wrong about them, not things that are good or neutral. If most women were promiscuous, why would sex be seen as a bad thing, rather than something everyone does and therefore neutral at worse? For women to insult each other for it, they need to see it as a bad thing.

So your original statement (if the ratio of males-to-females is high, it makes sense for women to have more sex, therefore it makes sense for women to insult each other about being promiscuous more) only makes sense if one assumes that being promiscuous is wrong and something justifying insulting each other for, and that it's wrong enough that people would still deem it wrong if it was the norm.
Otherwise, it would make much more sense, in a society full of promiscuous people, for it not to be an insult at all (rather than a more common insult) since that would be the norm. Especially since women would be rivaling each other much less due to the abundance of men.

I'm not sure how else to explain it. You original statement just seemed completely illogical to me on several levels, and I figured it only made logical sense if you worked on the assumption that being promiscuous is something that deserves being insulted for, and that it's a universal truth rather than a cultural thing. Remove that assumption and the argument does not stand.

[lio45]

At any rate, there is a much wider gap between athletes and non-athletes than there is between the average man and the average woman.

Oh, absolutely.

In other words, if us readers of OOTS are ever shown the 100 m champion at the Stickverse Human Olympics (no magic allowed), it's a safe bet that the forum outcry is going to be quite a bit smaller if Rich decides to choose a woman for that role, than if Rich chooses a visibly very overweight stick figure character for that role.

I don't think anyone in 36 pages so far would have disagreed with that, regardless of their POV on #0959.

[The Giant]

In particular, I am confused as to whether this change is occurring in-story (character growth) or on the meta-level (as a "character writing upgrade"), where we are now being asked as readers to approach this strip with a mind-set of this is how Haley has always been. As Kish and others have noted, the language in the final panels of this strip is similar to that used in 198, referring to an art upgrade, where we, as readers, were asked to accept those art changes as the new baseline "reality" of the strip.

It is character growth, but of a very minor sort. Sometimes, as you get older, you look at something you did and go, "Geez, that was childish. I should stop that." And then you do, and that's that. That's what's going on here, largely because giving this more weight would have required many more comics where Haley continued to display the traits that I no longer found acceptable before slowly changing, and I was unwilling to write and publish those comics anymore now that I feel differently.

So no, I don't need anyone to pretend Haley was always this way. If it needs to be further anchored in her existing growth, she has been consciously trying to "be better" since being with Elan; this is just another step in that path.

[Tom Lehmann]

It is character growth, but of a very minor sort. Sometimes, as you get older, you look at something you did and go, "Geez, that was childish. I should stop that." And then you do, and that's that. That's what's going on here, largely because giving this more weight would have required many more comics where Haley continued to display the traits that I no longer found acceptable before slowly changing, and I was unwilling to write and publish those comics anymore now that I feel differently.

Fair enough. Thank you for responding. I appreciate you doing so.

[dancrilis]

<Snipped for length - hope you don't mind>

I can respect that - as I mentioned I felt your earlier response was overly harsh, but as I also mentioned I have been known to be overly harsh myself at times.
This one I feel perhaps makes your point better - or at least in a way that is more appealing for me to read (which is perhaps a bit missing the point on my side).
All the best - hope you are still ultimately enjoying your work.

It only makes sense to insult people by pointing out things that are bad or wrong about them, not things that are good or neutral. If most women were promiscuous, why would sex be seen as a bad thing, rather than something everyone does and therefore neutral at worse? For women to insult each other for it, they need to see it as a bad thing.

So your original statement (if the ratio of males-to-females is high, it makes sense for women to have more sex, therefore it makes sense for women to insult each other about being promiscuous more) only makes sense if one assumes that being promiscuous is wrong and something justifying insulting each other for, and that it's wrong enough that people would still deem it wrong if it was the norm.
Otherwise, it would make much more sense, in a society full of promiscuous people, for it not to be an insult at all (rather than a more common insult) since that would be the norm. Especially since women would be rivaling each other much less due to the abundance of men.

I'm not sure how else to explain it. You original statement just seemed completely illogical to me on several levels, and I figured it only made logical sense if you worked on the assumption that being promiscuous is something that deserves being insulted for, and that it's a universal truth rather than a cultural thing. Remove that assumption and the argument does not stand.

I can see where you are coming from - my take is more along the lines that in my experience of human nature the more present something is the more it will be insulted/complimented and generally talked about.
But your experienced might be different from mine.

However you are effectively responding to a joke comment I made as I suspect that OOTS is not an actual 90/10 split in favour of men (and I am not doing an archive search and count to confirm).

[Gnoman]

That's what's going on here, largely because giving this more weight would have required many more comics where Haley continued to display the traits that I no longer found acceptable before slowly changing, and I was unwilling to write and publish those comics anymore now that I feel differently.

I suppose that, if you wanted to call attention to it, the only alternative that wouldn't greatly break the flow of the comic would be for her to have a rematch with a character she'd previously treated that way, and have her behave differently. Which would be somewhat implausible, as they're all very dead except Sabine, who doesn't really have a reason to fight the Order anymore, as that was Nale's fight, not something Sabine was personally invested in.

That said, Haley's behavior's been so greatly different as a whole since she resolved her Elan problem that I'm not sure it needs explaining anyway. She's gone from a fairly shallow, catty person towards actually being a reasonable adult. I don't think that there any non-4th-wall breaking way to focus on this issue in particular exists (or is particularly needed) because she's grown up so much over the course of the comic.

[Keltest]

That said, Haley's behavior's been so greatly different as a whole since she resolved her Elan problem that I'm not sure it needs explaining anyway. She's gone from a fairly shallow, catty person towards actually being a reasonable adult. I don't think that there any non-4th-wall breaking way to focus on this issue in particular exists (or is particularly needed) because she's grown up so much over the course of the comic.

The OOTS' fourth wall is so battered and bruised already from all the breaking that happens that I don't think that's much of an issue. If it needs more highlighting, it can get more highlighting. Lampshade optional.

[Aedilred]

It only makes sense to insult people by pointing out things that are bad or wrong about them, not things that are good or neutral. If most women were promiscuous, why would sex be seen as a bad thing, rather than something everyone does and therefore neutral at worse? For women to insult each other for it, they need to see it as a bad thing.

Eh. There are plenty of things people get insulted over which are objectively positive qualities - people who work hard or behave well at school, for instance, and I've seen the same attitude carry forward into adult workplaces.

Moreover, just because the majority of people do something doesn't mean, to my mind, that it's necessarily morally neutral, unless you subscribe to an absolutely relativistic moral scale. This isn't the place for that discussion, but it's worth making the point, I think.

Further, it's worth pointing out that disapproval of promiscuity and disapproval of female sexuality are not necessary synonymous, nor is disapproval of promiscuiity necessarily directed against women solely or specifically. It's perfectly possible to approve of and endorse people having as much sex as possible within the context of committed/monogamous relationships while disapproving of sex outside that.

Spoiler: Slight tangent on vocabulary etc.

Show

Of course, there is a more developed pejorative vocabulary for women in that context, at least in part, I suspect, because many such words are derived from assumptions of prostitution and that's a field in which women have historically been over-represented. "Slut" is an exception, although given the original meaning of that was literally along the lines of "immoral woman" it was always an insult, and the specific sexual connotation came later; a curious kind of back-formation considering the way people now use and are trying to "reclaim" it, etc.

Such vocabulary exists for men, as well, albeit much of it is quite archaic. Rake, lecher, lothario, etc. I guess "lech" is still in use, albeit it tends to have a slightly more specific meaning these days. "Dirty old man" likewise... and in my experience it's far from uncommon for promiscuous men to be referred to as "whores" or "sluts" without even the "man-" prefix.

Of course, I recognise that slut-shaming is much more of an issue for women than men, that women are more likely to suffer as a result of such social attitudes, and so forth - but nor is it exclusive to women and I don't think it ever has been. Moreover, it's worth making the point that disapproval of promiscuity doesn't necessarily map to a blanket disapproval of all sexual behaviour.

Also worth mentioning perhaps that in modern society at least people - both men and women - get mocked and insulted for perceived prudishness and lack of promiscuity as well...

[rodneyAnonymous]

Maybe in the democracy you live in.

No, that is not true of the society I live in. I meant The Democratic Ideal.

[zinycor]

As long as belkar continues to insult and treat most people like ****, i am Happy

in a more serious note: this is just a character who happens to be gay... don't really see why so many people start arguing about it. it's not like there is something which may offend you or in bad taste in the comic. Maybe if the whole comic was like this i would have thought that it was too preachy or something like that, but it was only a comment...

And the people who says that this is kind of a sudden change for haley, well it's nothing terrible either, sometimes you need some exposition to set charactes changes and motivations. Hell, now strip 496 is contesting for best strip (#400-#500) and that comic was nothing more than "Roy had a brother who died a long time ago".

The point that i am trying to make is, relax people, am sure the comic will ocntinue to be a wonderfull thing, it will be even more funny and more action packed.

and Giant, i really apreciatte your effort on answering the forum , but i think the only way to easy the waters now is to bring back bloodfeast the extreme-inator as soon as posible.

[Lissou]

I can see where you are coming from - my take is more along the lines that in my experience of human nature the more present something is the more it will be insulted/complimented and generally talked about.
But your experienced might be different from mine.

My experience is indeed different from yours. In my experience, the more common something is, the more it loses its negative connotations. Being gay used to be much "worse" when people didn't realise they had friends and family who were. That's actually part of the reason the Giant is being more inclusive if I understood the situation correctly.
People are more accepting of things that are "different" if they personally know someone affected by it. People don't come out as much if it's not safe for them to come out. Fictional characters risk nothing by coming out (although the first people to include them in their media do take a risk), but have a strong influence on the people consuming the media they appear in. Hence why LGBT characters are important, and so are female characters not characterised by their sexuality (whether it be too much or not enough).
That's why the media is so important. Promiscuity in females is considered a bad thing in our culture in large part because the characters we tend to see who are sexual are usually either the villain, or they get punished for it. So a lot of females who enjoy casual sex pretend they don't, and either don't have it or do so in secret. But if being promiscuous became more common, I assume it would lose its negative connotations as well.
What I think would happen in this situation is that insults targeted to women who are not promiscuous might skyrocket. That's not a good thing either, mind you.

However you are effectively responding to a joke comment I made as I suspect that OOTS is not an actual 90/10 split in favour of men (and I am not doing an archive search and count to confirm).

I don't think it's a 90/10 split either. Fair enough about it being a joke, but that doesn't mean I won't seriously analyze it anyways, as this is the internet and it's a serious subject.

[Gnoman]

The OOTS' fourth wall is so battered and bruised already from all the breaking that happens that I don't think that's much of an issue. If it needs more highlighting, it can get more highlighting. Lampshade optional.

What I was trying to get at is that the entire "Haley is growing up because of Elan" concept is pretty clear already.

[Bulldog Psion]

and Giant, i really apreciatte your effort on answering the forum , but i think the only way to easy the waters now is to bring back bloodfeast the extreme-inator as soon as posible.

This, right here, is something I can definitely get behind.

More Bandana! More Bloodfeast!

[jere7my]

I can respect that - as I mentioned I felt your earlier response was overly harsh, but as I also mentioned I have been known to be overly harsh myself at times.
This one I feel perhaps makes your point better - or at least in a way that is more appealing for me to read (which is perhaps a bit missing the point on my side).

Remember, too, that everything Rich says and does here gets picked apart and analyzed and parsed and checked for coded messages and tested against literal truth, to the tune of 1000+ messages in this thread alone. Someone who hadn't gone through that might think Rich would find it flattering, but it's not; I'm sure it's intensely stressful to live under that kind of scrutiny, especially when you're posting something personal. When one of those 1000+ messages accuses him of behaving like a cult leader, and tells him not to bother tackling moral issues because he lacks moral standing, and tells him not to bother tackling intellectual issues because he lacks the smarts of Desmond Tutu...frankly, I'm amazed he was as polite as he was.

[dancrilis]

Fair enough about it being a joke, but that doesn't mean I won't seriously analyze it anyways, as this is the internet and it's a serious subject.

See I would disagree with you here (to an extent), for you it is serious subject for me it isn't.

There is quite a lot of pages on this topic and I didn't bother reading most of them largely because I have other things to do, and largely because the strip simply came across to me as a method of introducing that Bandana was not straight (in what I do regard as a decent manner - she mentioned something about herself that was relevant to the conversation and in direct response to Halay seeking clarification), had a couple of ok jokes, and finished with some minor character development for Haley.
Nothing wrong with any of that - but nothing that makes me either want to pull my hair out or praise it either.

It is difficult to pick a favourite strip in the comic - but if I had to I think it would be Crushed (also the only one who's name I can remember off the top of my head without having to look at it - because I don't normally remember names of things), that strip was a masterpiece in my mind - from the execution to the character development to the name and the meanings it had.
This current strip was not that strip or to me anywhere close - I likely won't remember it in detail a month from now (no doubt others will remember it for years).

So to remove some of the rambling from my post - you care about the representation of gender and sexual orientation in the comic and consider it serious on the issue (both here and on the wider internet) and so feel it deserves to be discussed and corners should be fought (unless I am misreading you). I on the other hand would not even have assumed anything worth comment had occurred in 959 except that I visit the forums - and simply engage in the discussion for discussions sake (and as such that every corner is equally entertaining).

[Lissou]

[...]the strip simply came across to me as a method of introducing that Bandana was not straight (in what I do regard as a decent manner - she mentioned something about herself that was relevant to the conversation and in direct response to Halay seeking clarification), had a couple of ok jokes, and finished with some minor character development for Haley.
Nothing wrong with any of that - but nothing that makes me either want to pull my hair out or praise it either.

I agree with you. The comic itself didn't seem particularly noteworthy when I first read it. However, because of the response, I feel like not changing my mind would be hypocritical. It was an influential comic, in that it made many people happy about the inclusion, and it was a controversial comic in that more people than usual complained about it.

Either way, I was no commenting on the comic when I responded to your previous comment. The serious subject in question was not the comic. It was a social issue and as such, was probably out of place in the reaction thread. It fits right in with other posts, of course, but "other people are doing it too" is not a valid defense.

If you want to discuss the subject further, I would be interested in doing so. Let me know if you want to create a thread in the Friendly Banter subforum for that purpose. I'll try my best to avoid this reaction thread from now on, though. I've already reacted to the strip itself and I've either broken the forum rules or gotten close to it, and the fact that I'm not the only one is no excuse.

I've said everything I have to say about the strip itself at this point, and while I have a lot more to say about many other things, let's do that elsewhere.

[Ted The Bug]

Here's the thing: This particular strip is largely about me. It's about changes I've made in my personal outlook, and how I'm choosing to try to correct them going forward. It's the result of a lot of introspection and self-examination and hard looks at what I was putting out into the world. That a certain vein of criticism was valid, and reflected poorly on me as a person. It involved difficult admissions that I wasn't the person I wanted to be; that I had failed to live up to my own standards and needed to make changes.

And the response, from many? "WE DON'T PAY YOU TO THINK! DRAW SOMEONE FIGHTING A DRAGON PLZ! MAKE IT FUNNY!"

Fair enough! It's impossible for anybody but you/maybe some people you know well in real life to actually get your personal point of view without having it explained to them. I mean, I also love the parts of the comic where it's just dumb fun fight scenes and I hope those don't go away, but the new direction is just as entertaining and quote respectable. I really hope you didn't take my post as criticizing OOTS's willingness to be a little more serious in any way! Quote happy to see you choosing to use OOTS to take on bigger issues.

No. That's not what I'm doing here. I don't care about the same things some readers care about, and you know what? That's allowed. I'm allowed to tell my story on my own terms, using my own metrics of what I find important—and I'm further allowed to discuss those metrics when and where appropriate. Do I really need to tack, "In my opinion…" on the front of every statement I make about storytelling? This is a free work posted on the internet, and you're discussing it on a free message board; the price of that is that I get to set the rules, both in the comic and on the forum. No one else gets a vote. This isn't a corporate media site where you can influence the decision makers through financial pressure.

And that extends double to me as a person: no one here gets a vote on who I am or how I live my life or what my opinions are—or what my temper is like. If it's more therapeutic for me to get angry and post a rant than to bottle it up and let it fester, then that's what I'm going to do, and I'll accept whatever business consequences come from that. But I'm not going to pretend to be thrilled at the awful things people say to me just to keep a few more readers. On a purely practical level, it is almost impossible for me to write comedy when I'm angry, so venting on the message board directly leads to more comics. I am literally writing this post right now so I can get it out of my head and go write a script.

If you need me to be completely cool and collected at all times in the face of this sort of response, then I am going to consistently disappoint you. If you can't support me unless I never get mad, ever, no matter what is said to me, then no, you shouldn't support me. Because I wrote and deleted about 12 far angrier responses to pendell before I posted the one I posted. That's as good as it gets for me. That's the apex of calm. Heck, even this response is several steps calmer than my first draft.

So if that's still not good enough for you, then yeah, by all means: stop supporting me. It will be better for everyone in the long run. But if you actually value the truly independent business model, then you should respect that I'm willing to let this thing rise or fall as it may without pandering to anyone—even those who want me to change my personal temperament. This is who I am; this is what you get when you come to my playground. Take it or leave it. If that means it fails someday, then I'm OK with that.
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Understandable. And maybe some of my issues have to do with being raised in a culture that's very averse to confrontation, so I actually have spent much of my life basically needing to say "In my opinion" before even my thoughts on something as innocuous as pizza toppings. Mea culpa if that's just the way you tend to express yourself, and I interpreted it as intentionally trying to dismiss or score barbs! Can't say I'm all that into it, but at least I think I get it a bit more.

(I would also like to point out, more generally, that the people who were concerned about LGBT+ and female representation in the comic—you know, the people who I ended up deciding were right? Not one of them threatened to leave or withdraw financial support over it. If one wants me to listen, ultimatums or passive-aggressive "wondering" about whether one will keep reading is not the way to go about it. It is, in fact, the way for me to decide that the speaker is not worth the trouble and I can safely ignore them.)

Oh my gods, that wasn't a threat!! It was me honestly saying that angry interactions make me less likely to want to support OOTS after already having given a decent amount of money to it! I certainly didn't mean it as some kind of "do what I want or you'll lose me, the most valued and important patron of all time*!!" Just expressing my blunt opinion.

Anyhow, thank you for responding to my post! I know you've got things to do, and it is quite nice to see you taking the time to respond to my complaints. Good on ya.

*goes back to his lurking*


*that was sarcasm, just to be totally clear

[Knaight]

I can see where you are coming from - my take is more along the lines that in my experience of human nature the more present something is the more it will be insulted/complimented and generally talked about.

To use an example - there's a particularly juvenile insult, "four-eyes" thrown at people who use glasses. "Two-eyes" is basically never used as an insult though, because it is so omnipresent that it's unlikely to even be thought of.

[Paseo H]

And that extends double to me as a person: no one here gets a vote on who I am or how I live my life or what my opinions are—or what my temper is like. If it's more therapeutic for me to get angry and post a rant than to bottle it up and let it fester, then that's what I'm going to do, and I'll accept whatever business consequences come from that. But I'm not going to pretend to be thrilled at the awful things people say to me just to keep a few more readers. On a purely practical level, it is almost impossible for me to write comedy when I'm angry, so venting on the message board directly leads to more comics. I am literally writing this post right now so I can get it out of my head and go write a script.

Indeed. Same thing I tell everyone. My temperament is my temperament and they'd better just deal with it.

If you need me to be completely cool and collected at all times in the face of this sort of response, then I am going to consistently disappoint you. If you can't support me unless I never get mad, ever, no matter what is said to me, then no, you shouldn't support me. Because I wrote and deleted about 12 far angrier responses to pendell before I posted the one I posted. That's as good as it gets for me. That's the apex of calm. Heck, even this response is several steps calmer than my first draft.

Hey, he should have known better than to post what he did, right? You were very nice to hold back like you did. But you sure showed him, regardless.

So if that's still not good enough for you, then yeah, by all means: stop supporting me. It will be better for everyone in the long run. But if you actually value the truly independent business model, then you should respect that I'm willing to let this thing rise or fall as it may without pandering to anyone—even those who want me to change my personal temperament. This is who I am; this is what you get when you come to my playground. Take it or leave it. If that means it fails someday, then I'm OK with that.

They're either with you or they're against you, and that's that. I quite agree.