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Post by xtinas on Mar 24, 2017 10:34:19 GMT
Also, the idea that a question about whether there is just Too Much Representation of non-straights is an innocent question is disingenuous at best.
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siggy
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Post by siggy on Mar 24, 2017 16:18:48 GMT
This thread makes me sad, because Gunnerkrigg Court has a lot of genuinely complex and interesting LGBT content, but that content can never be discussed beyond the level of "gosh golly there are so many of them."
I read lots of webcomics with a much greater percentage of LGBT characters, and nobody complains about it. Why do people complain about it for GKC? Clearly it's because most of the LGBT webcomics I read are niche interests, while GKC is mainstream as far as webcomics go. Well, sorry that GKC is so good that you liked it. I guess this is payback for all the great mainstream literature I liked which had absolutely no LGBT content in it at all.
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Post by speedwell on Mar 24, 2017 17:06:15 GMT
I spent an hour this afternoon catching up on Oglaf. You all now look like a bunch of whiny kindergarteners drinking weak tea.  (Warning: Extremely NSFW... but really funny.) |
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Post by Mitth'raw'nuruodo on Mar 24, 2017 17:32:46 GMT
I'd like to ask the OP a quick question. What has been taking you out of the story more: the number of homosexual relationships, or the way the story has been going over the past several chapters (you've described this as an Annie bash-fest)? The last few chapters. I made this thread in a pique of frustration, as it was the straw that broke the camel's back, but it had also been bothering me for longer than the last few chapters. However, this topic would rate at "mild at best", while the last few chapters are "concerning". really isn't helping your case. Particularly when your avatar is a humanoid blue star wars dude who you presumably enjoy despite his blue skin being immersion breaking and the fact that an humanoid intelligent creature from another planet and evolution tree is statistically improbable. Chiss are human-derived that mutated due to "force-magic-Star-Wars-stuffs". I don't like Anime-hair because it is unremarked on and unexplained. If they just said something about how humans have green/blue/white/whatever hair recently, you can hand-wave it away. Also, the idea that a question about whether there is just Too Much Representation of non-straights is an innocent question is disingenuous at best. Well, its not. It was an innocent question. I mean if we are asking for more straight characters showcased a little closer I have to say I'd love to see Jenny and Jack any day. If you're looking for less gay characters that just seems a little weird and I can see why people's jimmies are a bit rustled. You don't seem to have a goal other than "the ratio is off, is anyone else find this offputting?", which seems to imply one of the former two solutions but isn't decisive enough. I'd rather see less romance. Straight, gay, what have you. I'm not asking for more or less gay characters. I just was reading and noticed that there seemed to be quite the amount of representation. I'm not saying its wrong, right, or anything. So to wrap it up, I'd would say "Less romance!". The Paz/Kat start was cute, and I enjoyed it. |
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Post by red4bestgirl on Mar 24, 2017 19:14:19 GMT
If I understand this correctly, you are saying that unrealistic things take you out of a story, and also that you want less attention and drama around romance in a comic about high schoolers.
Is that accurate
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Post by puntosmx on Mar 24, 2017 20:59:31 GMT
Also, the idea that a question about whether there is just Too Much Representation of non-straights is an innocent question is disingenuous at best. I found it as innocent enough. It's not like he's asking those characters and depictions to be removed. Can we all please not take things so seriously? (and it goes to all involved in this thread) |
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Post by Daedalus on Mar 24, 2017 23:02:59 GMT
Speaking of character sexualities, I wonder what Coyote's orientation is. He canonically has had a son, and the Coyote of Native American myth seems relatively pansexual or bisexual. But we'll never know unless Tom Siddell is willing to give us an answer on this completely-irrelevant-to-the-story question. |
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Post by snipertom on Mar 25, 2017 1:24:30 GMT
This thread has been reported as a possible troll/hate thread. If people wish to see it gone, please post below. I'm in favour of deleting this because of the history of how things have degenerated in the past on this forum. I think it's become very circular, and the lack of engagement by OP is upsetting people quite understandably. Original post seems like a pretext for putting forward a point of view rather than an actual question open to a reasonable conversation Edited out my tone of being shitty at this. |
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Post by snipertom on Mar 25, 2017 1:56:32 GMT
As a college biology professor, surely you should be aware of homosexual behaviour in the animal kingdom and social clustering (including that human relationships follow a scale-free network structure) and the dangers of making conclusions based on small sample size, especially one that isn't randomly selected.
And that phone surveys about sexual orientation and behavioural (the study design of the non-kinsey prevalence studies) are easily biased because people may not want to share details of their sexual orientation in the presence of others who may be listening. The Kinsey study was face to face 1 on 1 interviews, in the 1950s no less, and demonstrated a rate closer to 10%, and while there were some methodological flaws, they pale in comparison to the idea of a phone survey.
And that selection to gunnerkrigg court itself may bias towards selecting more LGBTIQ people (eg fairies and forest animals being of only one gender, or people applying to an LGBTIQ friendly workplace).
Perhaps you don't know that many gay people yourself, however many people have a lot of gay friends as has been stated in this thread ad nauseum by many people, demonstrating that social clustering happens and isn't that uncommon. Heck when I was at school, of my 4 best friends only 1 turned out to be straight in the long run. Reality breaking? Not really. My friends stuck with me partially because they weren't homophobic. Similarly Kat only has a couple of friends, and part of that might be because other people assumed she was gay because she's a tomboy and avoided her - thus the friends she does have are more open minded and in some cases gay themselves.
And as people have pointed out repeatedly, this comic is not set in our world or reality. Maybe there are more gay people in the world gunnerkrigg court is set in. Who cares?
Regarding loaded questions and responding to things in an insensitive way: there's an implication in your question that the author is "pandering to a minority", and that assertion includes the idea that focusing on a minority group is bad. This is like the arguments where gamers think that game developers are "pandering" to women or gays or non-white people. Maybe the target audience includes LGBTIQ people. Is that so bad? Most stories have no lgbtiq people, so I fail to see what's wrong with having a story with extra lgbtiq people. We have plenty of stories already that "pander" to straight white non-trans able-bodied guys. Which is ok! I read some of those stories and I enjoy them too.
The author has clearly decided to make the characters the way their are for a reason. He has a target audience that he's chosen for a reason. No one is forcing you to read this comic. If you don't like it, don't read it. Maybe it's not for you. But if you can suspend your belief and read a comic in which gay people are friends with each other and also with some straight people, then continue. That choice is up to you.
My problem is not your feeling of disbelief, or your feelings about gay people (I don't think you're homophobic but I think you might be a bit sheltered), it's more that people have responded quite civilly and with reasoned arguments and that you don't seem to engage with that or adjust your thoughts at all. If you're going to ask a question, maybe have some flexibility about your underlying assumptions and arguments. And maybe when people say "hey look this isn't nice behaviour, this is upsetting me" have the decency to step back and rethink your behaviour.
This forum has weathered some really really awful threads that have descended into pretty dreadful behaviour and homophobia. Often they've started like this, and then other people have used the original premise that's a bit dodgy as a pretext to start going on about their feelings about how gays are gross and Tom is bad and children shouldn't be exposed to gays and how gays are so sensitive. So I'm in favour of this being either shut down or locked because of the history. 🔒
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Post by Zox Tomana on Mar 25, 2017 5:07:35 GMT
I'd like to ask the OP a quick question. What has been taking you out of the story more: the number of homosexual relationships, or the way the story has been going over the past several chapters (you've described this as an Annie bash-fest)? The last few chapters. I made this thread in a pique of frustration, as it was the straw that broke the camel's back, but it had also been bothering me for longer than the last few chapters. However, this topic would rate at "mild at best", while the last few chapters are "concerning". I think this is kind of an important point. Sure, it's something which has been noticeable for you. It's something that's a little out of the ordinary, or at least out of your experience, and thus it is something you take notice of. The point where it becomes frustrating (or at least something to bother taking not of), in my personal opinion, is after your disbelief has been beaten about enough that, instead of being immersed into the story, you're looking down at it and taking notice of the various different parts. Once you start picking the story apart, you take greater note of things that were previously just "mild" in their impact on your suspension of disbelief. As I said, this isn't something that strains my personal suspension of disbelief. But it is something I took notice of a while ago. It wasn't until this last chapter, though, that it really came to the forefront of my attention because I spent half the last chapter in critic-mode looking at the workings of the story thus far. |
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Post by foxurus on Mar 25, 2017 7:50:25 GMT
Red and Ayilu broke my suspension of disbelief a bit. It doesn't really make sense to me that fairies would have romantic inclinations. Exactly! Nobody has ever encountered a fairy in real life who has romantic inclinations, so this story about fairies having romantic inclinations is clearly unrealistic. It vexes me that a comic would get such pertinent objective real life fairy science wrong. A non-human species which is shown to have a pretty different culture & emotion(al response)s happens to have the concept of romantic relationships and feel romantic love, despite many non-human species in real life not (romantic feelings are not innate to life). The robots were programmed to love Jeanne, the tree elves and seemingly the shadow people (see: Shadow 2) have concepts of romance and practice romantic relationships, and now also the fairies. It feels human-centric and unimaginative. I'm curious why fairies should not have romantic inclinations? Furthermore, these are fairies who wanted become human so badly that they were willing to commit suicide to get it. So even if fairies existed, and even if most of them did not have romantic tendencies, what about the skewed sample of suicide-committing-human-loving fairies? (Now I am thinking of Ariel - Mermaid...) Following from the above, I admit that my personal aversion to romantic stories likely makes me more sensitive to non-humans having romantic inclinations than them having other things, like having hands or a familiar facial structure. That's a fair point. Transfer students might be more human-esque than most. I will accept this as my headcanon. Thank you! |
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Post by Nepycros on Mar 25, 2017 13:15:20 GMT
I will present my thoughts on this debate. I will make this as neutral as possible. I will try to be fair to the proposed position that the frequency of specific types of relationships is abnormal. I will also be proposing all of this from a position that relies on my past self, meaning someone who, based on his beliefs, would use specific arguments to draw a point many would find contentious. I will then offer counterarguments to those same statements. I realize that by doing this, I may miss the mark on what the OP is attempting to argue, but it's possible I can highlight key factors that go into my reasoning and provide insight into how to look at the situation differently. To all, it will follow a proposed argument and a rebuttal format. If anyone believes my language or tone is harsh, unfair, or dismissive, I apologize and would like to rectify that. I understand this is a polarizing subject, and attempting to be level-headed when there are so many avenues to discuss and ways to feel about it may be a fool's errand on my part. XD
If I had to scrape the very dregs of my old ideology regarding relationship pairing, it would seem like the number of relationships steering toward homoromantic is high if only because popular culture loses their collective minds when we have even one in a fictional story; undue amount of attention can be given to it, and the relationship (whether it feels organic or not) becomes a pivotal point of contention between many people. So as a result, having many relationships, both homoromantic and homosexual, would seem like a firecracker of drama waiting to occur.
Except that argument is still invalid because Tom's story isn't a romantic drama or romantic comedy. Its genre-specific premise and story conceit lends itself to utilizing relationships as character development rather than plot development. There is no pressure to utilize drama, no consequence to exploring character interactions of that sort, and the survival of the webcomic will always need to rely on the characters and the overarching plot well before it has to depend on whether two male or two female characters stay together.
Now, it's a common factor among communal groups to associate with others based on shared interests or character traits (I believe this has already been stated and possibly restated). So it might seem inorganic to have several homoromantic or homosexual relationships that have apparently developed entirely naturally among characters who haven't selected for similar traits among potential friends.
Except that in Gunnerkrigg Court, the characters are brought together as children, associated in close proximity, and are isolated from cultures that would otherwise utilize harsh measures to prevent these relationships from occurring naturally. Selective pressures to form friendships will have a variety of elements to it (such as how weird a character is, if we analyze Annie's isolation from other students during the camping trip). But no reason has been presented to isolate homo-whichever individuals from the community. With no means of removing the element, it remains a part of the population, as natural as can be. We do have an interestingly large student body padding the character roster, which provides a high probability that more than a handful will have non-heteroromantic interests. Or in Kat's case, potentially bi-romantic.
I think this is the point where I'll end up having to isolate what I think is the true crux of the issue: How many 'gay' characters who happen to be main or supporting cast. After all, Kat/Paz's relationship has a lot more exposure than many other types.
But this ultimately isn't an argument at all. I can lead it down a rabbit hole and pull some contrivances out of thin air to make it seem rational, but it has no compulsion to it. Ultimately, my personal preference is to see hetero-romantic relationships and that is the direct origin of any argument about exposure to other relationship types. That's because I have an interest in those. That isn't a reason to attempt to diminish relationships that don't fit in that narrow group because I'm not the only member of the audience. In fact, my preferences aren't even relevant to the story itself, merely how much I read it. (By the way, it may sound like I have less interest in GC because it doesn't have "enough" hetero-romantic relationships, but that isn't the case. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to phrase it better.) Had Tom proposed a non-homoromantic relationship in place of Kat/Paz, I would be concerned with how organic that relationship felt in its development.
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So I hope I've addressed the quantity, consistency, and exposure to "abnormal" character traits and relationship types (only because I use abnormal as a term that implies a deviation from the average or majority). These are all pertinent to the "statistical" components of the storytelling aspect of GC's relationship department, and none of them have compelling arguments against having more, less, or the same number of homo-romantic or homosexual relationships, depending on what character interactions Tom comes up with. In fact, I find it interesting that we haven't had much in terms of strictly male/male, since Shadow/Robot are impossible to classify without learning more about their particular character traits. If we start getting many, many more female/female relationships, I might be curious about why Tom isn't exploring other avenues, but again, it's his story.
Since this discussion sprung from one about statistics, that should be the end of it at least on my end. I hope I've maintained morally neutral throughout this post, and I hope everyone can take my words at face value without construing something beyond my intention. Any misinterpretations are on me to rectify.
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Post by snowflake on Mar 25, 2017 13:45:39 GMT
I spent an hour this afternoon catching up on Oglaf. You all now look like a bunch of whiny kindergarteners drinking weak tea. (Warning: Extremely NSFW... but really funny.) Behold, the gunnerkriggest oglaf: Practice (sfw). |
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Post by KMar on Mar 25, 2017 17:21:30 GMT
I haven't logged in for about ~a week, and ... my first reaction when I found this thread:  (courtesy of the Opportunity thread) A comment. This is a comic about girls having haircuts (and other adventures) in a magical school located in Britain. It is, at the end of things, like all popular art, supposed to be entertainment. I'd encourage people not to spend too much time thinking too seriously about some fictional characters' sexuality. As a my personal opinion (that nobody asked for), I think in our society there's been too much noise about everything related to mating behavior of this particular species of hairless apes, and most of the said apes would be happier if we would devote less time to thinking and discussing and contemplating our navels about it instead of all the other things we could be doing. Many others will probably have wildly different opinions on the matter. But I don't think this is a good place for that discussion. |
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Post by bgb16999 on Mar 26, 2017 16:55:27 GMT
I just realized, this forum completely breaks my suspension of disbelief. I was looking for statistics on what fraction of the population of the world reads Gunnerkrigg Court, and, while it is difficult to pin down exactly, it is far less than 3% of the world's population. Yet, somehow, it seems like everyone on this forum reads Gunnerkrigg Court? How is that possible? It utterly shatters my suspension of disbelief that we could have a community in which more than 3% of people read Gunnerkrigg Court. To maintain my arbitrary standards for believability, no internet forum may be permitted to have more than 3% of users who have read Gunnerkrigg Court!
Of course, in the real world, people have some self-selection as to who they interact with. I have no interest in remaining friends with someone who can't or won't accept me for who I am. It's also true that MOGAI/LTBTQAIP+/Queer people are more likely to be accepting of other queer people. As a result, a "randomly selected" person in my social circle is more likely to be MOGAI/LTBTQAIP+/Queer than a randomly selected person in the global population of humans. That's not a coincidence--it's because humans have a tendency to self-segregate into groups they are more comfortable with.
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Post by CoyoteReborn on Mar 27, 2017 4:50:58 GMT
Speaking of sexuality, I've found Myself a nice lady coyote so I may be too...otherwise occupied to post the thread tonight, yes yes!  I trust My disciples to do My work in My absence  |
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Post by CoyoteReborn on Mar 27, 2017 19:35:12 GMT
Speaking of sexuality, I've found Myself a nice lady coyote so I may be too...otherwise occupied to post the thread tonight, yes yes! update fun times last night were cut short because i realized i am in fact a goose moreover a dead goose not a coyote she-coyote was not happy a tragedy |
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clover
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Post by clover on Mar 27, 2017 22:53:40 GMT
Well I mean an absurd amount of Coyote's stories are more or less about him losing or lending his genitals, then it's about the mischief people get up to using his genitals, so I mean we could just go ahead with that.
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Post by warrl on Mar 27, 2017 23:27:39 GMT
Well I mean an absurd amount of Coyote's stories are more or less about him losing or lending his genitals, then it's about the mischief people get up to using his genitals, so I mean we could just go ahead with that. Seems to be a common pattern. A lot of Greek mythology is about Zeus being unable to keep his genitals where they belonged, and the resulting mischief. (Mostly when Hera found out where he had put them.) |
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clover
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Post by clover on Mar 27, 2017 23:48:25 GMT
Well, a slight difference: in greco-roman mythology it's mostly about how Zeus himself got into infidelity.
In Native American mythology, Coyote's genitals are themselves separable from his body, and he frequently either detaches them to go get up to mischief, or other animals spirit away with them and get up to mischief through the use of Coyote's purloined tools.
Coyote seems to be particularly fond of mallard ducks.
/edit - so here I am discovering that Zeus liked detachable shenanigans too.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2017 1:37:35 GMT
This thread has been reported as a possible troll/hate thread. If people wish to see it gone, please post below. I'm in favor of deleting this thread. Only because I feel that the discussion of sexual attraction (NOT romantic orientation) in a forum for a comic that's aimed for a PG audience, with teenaged protagonists isn't really appropriate. :I |
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Post by snipertom on Mar 28, 2017 5:06:01 GMT
This thread has been reported as a possible troll/hate thread. If people wish to see it gone, please post below. I'm in favor of deleting this thread. Only because I feel that the discussion of sexual attraction (NOT romantic orientation) in a forum for a comic that's aimed for a PG audience, with teenaged protagonists isn't really appropriate. :I I don't think anyone here is actually talking about sex, and even so, most adolescents talk about the concept? And romantic and sexual attraction usually map onto each other? And we're talking about dating (rather than sex) which clearly implies romantic attraction? |
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Post by philman on Mar 28, 2017 7:50:42 GMT
Ugh this thread is still going? Seriously guys, what more is there left to say?  |
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Post by Elysium on Mar 28, 2017 8:20:03 GMT
The robots were programmed to love Jeanne, the tree elves and seemingly the shadow people (see: Shadow 2) have concepts of romance and practice romantic relationships, and now also the fairies. It feels human-centric and unimaginative. So you're saying that have romantic inclinations is a human thing... Isn't that human-centric? |
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Post by Tom Siddell on Mar 28, 2017 8:57:31 GMT
The thread has run its course, so it will now be locked. For the record, discussion of sensitive topics is welcome if statements, arguments, and refutations are presented charitably and in good faith. More importantly, a thread will continue as long as all parties do not break the first rule of the forum. |
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(Warning: Extremely NSFW... but really funny.)
