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Post by mochakimono on Feb 19, 2022 19:42:38 GMT
I think what this scene boils down to is that neither side involved knows what anybody else is actually trying to communicate. The elf boys are thinking, "Oh, she's making a move on us," while Lana appears to have learned all she knows about "what boys like" from Victoria's Secret ads. Which is to say, absolutely nothing except a vague notion people like to look at cleavage for a few seconds here and there. Unless she's been reading or watching some genuinely saucy material from Harlequin or HBO, I agree she has no idea there's any sort of endgame involved past that point, and then the elves have no idea she has no idea. And Loup might or might not bother to enlighten anyone around him what they're oblivious to in this exchange...
As for Loup's motivations, I get the sense he's just irritated and impatient, not so much chivalrous. He's already told her before to Put Those Things Back Where They Came From Or So Help Me, and he thinks she's annoying. Stopping to watch her bumble around some random social interaction with the elves he finds just as irrelevant is just an obstacle on his mission to spy on actually important people instead. That's my take, anyway.
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Post by taothegreat on Feb 19, 2022 21:47:17 GMT
Doing a rare log-in to join in on the voices who thought this was a bit too far. I haven't even experienced any sort of sexual assault (thank goodness) and this page made me viscerally uncomfortable. Really would have appreciated a "Today's update may be upsetting to some readers" warning so I could brace myself. Can't imagine how stumbling into it felt for people who have experienced sexual assault. I definitely didn't expect something like this from Gunnerkrigg.
We've had some lewd moments played for jokes. I actually enjoy the recognition that some of these characters have sex and enjoy sex - it makes them feel more human! I could extrapolate from that that sometimes people at the Court are assaulted, and I don't think the escalation here is unrealistic, but I think Tom should have taken care and recognized the fact that today's page would be extremely upsetting to some readers. I also question whether this scene was necessary, but that remains to be seen. I have to know what comes out of it first.
It's not at all surprising to me that some people want to drop the comic after this page. Stumbling into a traumatic memory when you're reading one of your favourite comics would be a terrible experience. I've definitely quit comics for less.
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strangebloke1
New Member
Any Avatar you see me with is original work. Please ask me about it!
Posts: 30 
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Post by strangebloke1 on Feb 19, 2022 21:54:54 GMT
Gunnerkrigg is at its core a coming-of-age story and as such has never shied away from showing growing pains in a realistic fashion. Annie and Mort, Annie and Jack, Kat and Annie and Paz, the twin Annies. And yeah, these characters behave in a realistic fashion, which means they're at times very awkward and painful. But that same realism and awkwardness is what makes gunnerkrigg so uniquely engaging. Most coming-of-age stories are painfully pristine and idealized and detached from what growing up is actually like. Some of this stuff is going to make you uncomfortable, but *that's kind of the point*. I can understand getting turned away if its making you too uncomfortable, but I don't think its bad that this comic is willing to present uncomfortable scenes. In this case? These guys were harrassing Lana. Or trying to harrass her. She was too naive to understand what the actual point of the interaction was, in part because she's only been exposed to books in the library where (as already mentioned) uncomfortable interactions like this don't really occur. Now to be fair, the elf boys here seem pretty naive themselves, and are just defaulting to harrassment/catcalling because that's how they think guys are supposed to act around girls. I don't think things would have progressed much farther than what we see here without Loup's intervention. Lana would probably laugh in confusion, push them away, and then leave. She has up to this point (inadvertently) appeared receptive to their advances and if she stopped they probably wouldn't pursue her further. But the big point here is that all the new people are really vulnerable in general because of their naivety and general 'purity.' Even someone like Lana who projects a lot of confidence and 'social knowledge' still has massive, massive gaps. As for Loup's motivations, I get the sense he's just irritated and impatient, not so much chivalrous. He's already told her before to Put Those Things Back Where They Came From Or So Help Me, and he thinks she's annoying. Stopping to watch her bumble around some random social interaction with the elves he finds just as irrelevant is just an obstacle on his mission to spy on actually important people instead. That's my take, anyway. 100% agree. He doesn't have time for these stupid kids to be awkward and bumble around each other. The elves are getting in his way and he doesn't care about them so he's inflicting pain (way more than necessary, because he's loup) to get them to leave so that things can move on. He's escalating what was an uncomfortable situation into full-on violence. |
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Post by taothegreat on Feb 19, 2022 23:08:23 GMT
Gunnerkrigg is at its core a coming-of-age story and as such has never shied away from showing growing pains in a realistic fashion. Annie and Mort, Annie and Jack, Kat and Annie and Paz, the twin Annies. And yeah, these characters behave in a realistic fashion, which means they're at times very awkward and painful. But that same realism and awkwardness is what makes gunnerkrigg so uniquely engaging. Most coming-of-age stories are painfully pristine and idealized and detached from what growing up is actually like. Some of this stuff is going to make you uncomfortable, but *that's kind of the point*. I can understand getting turned away if its making you too uncomfortable, but I don't think its bad that this comic is willing to present uncomfortable scenes. There's nothing wrong with a scene addressing sexual harassment/assault if it is necessary to the story and presented in a way that is respectful of real-world victims. My issue here is the consequences of presenting a scene like that without any sort of warning to people. You can mitigate the amount of discomfort a reader is exposed to without warning, even if your content is entirely unchanged. If this were a published comic it would have a rating with clear indications of the challenging subjects it addresses. People would be able to choose accordingly whether they were in the space to address that difficult subject in that moment in time. On a day-by-day webcomic upload where there are no such ratings and nobody knows what will happen the next day except the author, the responsible and courteous thing to do is to add a warning that visitors are about to read something they may find brings up traumatic memories. Then they can decide whether or not to engage in that moment. It's the kind thing to do, and I wish it had been done here. |
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Post by speedwell on Feb 20, 2022 1:35:48 GMT
Gunnerkrigg is at its core a coming-of-age story and as such has never shied away from showing growing pains in a realistic fashion. Annie and Mort, Annie and Jack, Kat and Annie and Paz, the twin Annies. And yeah, these characters behave in a realistic fashion, which means they're at times very awkward and painful. But that same realism and awkwardness is what makes gunnerkrigg so uniquely engaging. Most coming-of-age stories are painfully pristine and idealized and detached from what growing up is actually like. Some of this stuff is going to make you uncomfortable, but *that's kind of the point*. I can understand getting turned away if its making you too uncomfortable, but I don't think its bad that this comic is willing to present uncomfortable scenes. There's nothing wrong with a scene addressing sexual harassment/assault if it is necessary to the story and presented in a way that is respectful of real-world victims. My issue here is the consequences of presenting a scene like that without any sort of warning to people. You can mitigate the amount of discomfort a reader is exposed to without warning, even if your content is entirely unchanged. If this were a published comic it would have a rating with clear indications of the challenging subjects it addresses. People would be able to choose accordingly whether they were in the space to address that difficult subject in that moment in time. On a day-by-day webcomic upload where there are no such ratings and nobody knows what will happen the next day except the author, the responsible and courteous thing to do is to add a warning that visitors are about to read something they may find brings up traumatic memories. Then they can decide whether or not to engage in that moment. It's the kind thing to do, and I wish it had been done here. All my life I've read novels and other works of fiction dealing with subjects that are uncomfortable. These fictional works range from ancient mythology through Elizabethan plays through historical fiction set in every period of history and every part of the world. I don't much care for the sort of twentieth-century literature that wallows in suffering, to be sure. But I don't remember asking for parental warning labels on any of it. If you have trouble with any of the topics presented, it is good to remember that the events presented are not happening to you. If despite that you feel bad seeing them, you should remind yourself that you don't yet know how the scene will play out - I know the three-times-a-week format can be frustratingly slow when the action is quick and tense. Consider whether you need to reach out to someone to help you process the emotional baggage that causes you pain. As a former battered wife I assure you I've been over that road myself. We may not always agree with the outcome of every plot point in the comic, but we can always trust Tom to be a competent storyteller with a reason for what he does on every page. |
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Post by maxptc on Feb 20, 2022 4:42:43 GMT
This being controversial, both in respect to topics and art broached by this comic previously and general ideas presented in storytelling as a whole is a mixture of bemusing and depressing to me. We don't know the full situation in regards to the intentions of anyone involed yet, but I seriously doubt it will be anything that evil or dark based on the history of the comic. I understand everyone has damage, this might hit some triggers and no one on this ride is undamaged. I would just also personally bet any of your lives that it is closer to an awkward misunderstanding then an aggressive display, but even if you read it that way or it was that way, it's just not that graphically presneted and while it is an uncomfortable situation it is a realistic one, presented in a tactful way in a comic that has had some dark topics touched upon. Its cool to have a strong reaction to the causal sexual aggression in the world/what young females deal with on the regular, its really lame that it being presented in a story is this controversial.
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jocobo
Junior Member
Posts: 78
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Post by jocobo on Feb 20, 2022 4:56:18 GMT
Gunnerkrigg has touched on equally dark subjects before. From child death (more than once in fact),to bodily mutilation,mental illness, to self-harm, to stalking to torture. All of those things can bring up traumatic memories and yet none of those came with a content warning.
And whenever those topics have come up, it has done so for a reason. To say something about the characters, the world or human nature.
This scene isn't happening for shock value or entertainment and nothing those forest people have done has been portrayed positively. It is clearly building up to saying something, to making a point.
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Post by TBeholder on Feb 20, 2022 10:04:39 GMT
This did look like things are spinning out of control.
Also, the solution calls for a pithy one-liner Loup is unlikely to provide.
The question of exactly how naive Lana is… any answer would be arbitrary this far. Even more so if we consider she did "study" human attraction… via materials completely unknown to us.
It's entirely possible that she is utterly clueless and cannot realize the elf's movements just left "poke poke, is this real?" space. It's also entirely possible (if less likely) that she knows exactly what she does, and wants some live hentai out of wild curiosity. Or any point in between. For example, she could pick this act from a character in some comic she read over a human's shoulder, but remains blissfully unaware that the reader hit task switch so fast upon noticing her not because there was still work to be done.
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Post by blahzor on Feb 20, 2022 12:50:07 GMT
i wonder what people's thoughts would be on the last few pages when the entire chapter is complete instead of us just sitting around waiting for the next page
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Post by OrzBrain on Feb 20, 2022 19:14:18 GMT
Man, these green elf kids just can't catch a break. First they get mind raped by Zimmy into playing this kind of role in her flashback psychodrama, and now they're trying it out for real. Maybe someone should speak to their parents about supervision or at least a curfew.
Also I have to wonder what Kat is thinking. Although, I suppose if all the new people robots have sufficient physical strength to fight off groups of attackers and no reproductive consequences for sexual activity then it's not so bad. At least until groups of new people robots start emulating the elf teenager gangs...
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Post by flowsthead on Feb 20, 2022 20:15:51 GMT
Also I have to wonder what Kat is thinking. I doubt Kat is thinking. She saw that the robots wanted something and it happened to align with her own interests. I'm not saying she's malicious or callous about it, I just think she didn't think any further than, "I'm doing a good thing giving them what they want." It's also maybe not her responsibility to give them a society and rules and an education, but providing teachers would be helpful. I'm not sure Kat sees herself as a leader as much as a third party that is helping them, while they definitely see her as a leader or figurehead, and that contrast is bound to create problems down the line. |
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Post by drmemory on Feb 20, 2022 20:55:48 GMT
Two observations:
Kat's New People do NOT have the three laws of robotics baked in. They have free will, modulo anything left over from core Diego programming, as modified or preserved by the Golem Robots. It doesn't seem like the court themselves know much about their programming - look how ham-fisted and klunky their overrides have been.
It isn't clear whether Lana was in any danger. Are these still fundamentally robots? Like, strong? We know from early S13 events that they can be hurt, as his model at the time broke his finger, but I don't think we know what other characteristics have been carried over or dropped. Kat may be naive (or may not?) but that doesn't mean she would leave her creations helpless. It may (MAY) be that if Lana didn't like where things went, she could have just broken the elf kid in two. Or not. We just don't know enough yet. Is Loup using his own strength there, or Ysengrin tree strength, or are the NP just very strong?
About the only thing I think we can (probably) rule out is martial arts. Annie knows those but Kat doesn't seem to, so wouldn't know how to program them in. Otherwise I'd think something like Judo or some other leverage-based thing might be going on there. It looks a lot more Terminator-like though.
We don't really know how strong the elves are either, thinking about it, though I do vaguely recall them all being able to use the rope to get upstairs without visible effort.
Note that I am NOT saying what the elf kid was doing was ok - clearly he was being creepy if not worse. I'm just not sure how much risk was in the situation. This isn't a real teenage girl nor a real teenage boy, however it looks on the surface. Probably for the best that we didn't find out. You know, we still might though - if the elf kids don't just run away in shame we could see a elf kid vs. fake new person match next!
Probably not though. Dying to know what happens next!
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Post by pyradonis on Feb 20, 2022 22:51:16 GMT
Jerrek just wants them to pipe down. No, he just threatened her home and her friends.Though I must say again, the Loup we are seeing right now feels vastly different from the one on the page I linked to, and I doubt it's just his new hairdo. The threats of force were more about getting the gifts back, he tries temptation on Annie herself but she has none of it. Edit: Although yeah the 'shred your flesh' line... Funnily, I'd say that line exclaimed during an angry outburst is which he might or might not actually do if sufficiently provoked, but it was not uttered with a goal in mind. When Annie replied with "I'm not going to do anything you say." to Loup claiming she would now stay in the Forest with him, he very calculatedly threatened to harm others if she did not comply.
which brings me to something i noticed : almost every grown-up thing (read here sexual) in the comic is brought from the forest. coyote's kinda creepy jokes about annie, loup habing similar comments about annie staying forever and him being whateber she wants him to be ? my memories blur on that one. the elf boy in annie and the forest, indra and eglamore, now the elf boys. i guess you could also count coyotes comments about parley ans smitty. the court characters on their own almost never mention it, so what's up with that ? it's almost a theme. I think it's not a theme as much as these are simply two different cultures, and one of them is more open when it comes to talking about sex than the other.
Gunnerkrigg has touched on equally dark subjects before. From child death (more than once in fact),to bodily mutilation,mental illness, to self-harm, to stalking to torture. All of those things can bring up traumatic memories and yet none of those came with a content warning. Not to mention child abuse/neglect, bullying, brainwashing, gaslighting and murder out of burning jealousy and hatred.
I suppose if all the new people robots have sufficient physical strength to fight off groups of attackers Many seem to think that. I don't. All we have seen points to the NP's bodies being made to mimic human bodies as close as possible.
Also I have to wonder what Kat is thinking. I doubt Kat is thinking. She saw that the robots wanted something and it happened to align with her own interests. I'm not saying she's malicious or callous about it, I just think she didn't think any further than, "I'm doing a good thing giving them what they want." It's also maybe not her responsibility to give them a society and rules and an education, but providing teachers would be helpful. I'm not sure Kat sees herself as a leader as much as a third party that is helping them, while they definitely see her as a leader or figurehead, and that contrast is bound to create problems down the line. I agree. So far, Kat has never been shown to put much thoughts into the consequences of her actions, she just does something because it interests her or she thinks it's the right thing to do right now. (Which is not entirely unexpected of someone her age, of course.) Annie seems to have learned more about thinking about (and taking responsibility for) the consequences of her actions. Anytime something bad and/or dangerous resulted from the things Kat did (The Torn Sea, New Contract), it just served to enthuse her even more.
They have free will, modulo anything left over from core Diego programming Haha, I love this wording! |
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Post by mordekai on Feb 20, 2022 23:37:37 GMT
Man, these green elf kids just can't catch a break. First they get mind raped by Zimmy into playing this kind of role in her flashback psychodrama, and now they're trying it out for real. Maybe someone should speak to their parents about supervision or at least a curfew. Well, to be honest they seem to mostly be assholes... I understand they are insular and mostly ignorant about the outside world, but: 1.-A guy who sexually harass girls is a jerk or worst even if his culture kinda condones it, and... 2.-Come on! They are refugees living in a strange, confusing new land after being kicked out from their homes by an enraged mad god! Shouldn't they be a bit more cautious? Why are they harassing people and picking fights? For all they know, the Court could kill them all if they piss them too much...! Also I have to wonder what Kat is thinking. Although, I suppose if all the new people robots have sufficient physical strength to fight off groups of attackers and no reproductive consequences for sexual activity then it's not so bad. At least until groups of new people robots start emulating the elf teenager gangs... "No reproductive consequences for sexual activity" is the least of their worries... what I am worried about is about the psychological consequences of disasters like the one Loup just averted... |
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Post by warrl on Feb 21, 2022 4:06:25 GMT
Whether Loup just averted a disaster, just caused one, or some in-between condition, is not known at this time.
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Post by maxptc on Feb 21, 2022 5:21:58 GMT
Whether Loup just averted a disaster, just caused one, or some in-between condition, is not known at this time. I'm personally guessing caused a disaster by averting a disaster. Just the significance of each is left in question. |
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Post by sebastian on Feb 21, 2022 6:54:27 GMT
I think people are misreading the elves here, it is happening again what happened with Red, we are attributing human standards to creatures that aren't human. (and thinking about it, that apply to Lana, too)
Considere "annie in the forest part 2", elves have a matriarchial society, also elves kid are used to have mixed gendere parties, with no adult supervision, where they go swimming together and consume alcohol.
With all this what is more probable? That sexual harassment is a thing they do or that they have a more open attitude toward sex that we have?
I mean, yeah, if they were human teens harassment was almost certainly a thing that is happening, (or that could happen, I still think that at that point calling this 'rapey' is overkill) but for elves is more probable that they are just playing around, testing the waters to see how serious she is. Now, the moement she clearly make them undesrstand she is not interested and they ignore it, then it is harassment, but until thenit is all in the eye of the beholder.
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Post by speedwell on Feb 21, 2022 8:57:23 GMT
I think people are misreading the elves here, it is happening again what happened with Red, we are attributing human standards to creatures that aren't human. (and thinking about it, that apply to Lana, too) Considere "annie in the forest part 2", elves have a matriarchial society, also elves kid are used to have mixed gendere parties, with no adult supervision, where they go swimming together and consume alcohol. With all this what is more probable? That sexual harassment is a thing they do or that they have a more open attitude toward sex that we have? I mean, yeah, if they were human teens harassment was almost certainly a thing that is happening, (or that could happen, I still think that at that point calling this 'rapey' is overkill) but for elves is more probable that they are just playing around, testing the waters to see how serious she is. Now, the moement she clearly make them undesrstand she is not interested and they ignore it, then it is harassment, but until thenit is all in the eye of the beholder. Yeah, no, please don't be that person who defends sexual harassers. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Feb 21, 2022 9:16:10 GMT
Reality is complex. In My Humble Opinion what the elf kids did wrong is either not recognize or ignore that they and Lana do not share the same cultural context and therefore a higher bar needed to be met before moving into personal space and touching, as well as the fact that their numbers may be intimidating. There are people who engage in sex casually without express consent and that is okay provided that everyone's operating in the same context. To be fair, the touching may have started as a "what are you" rather than "how far can we take this" but this is a street in broad daylight and not a dance club, vacay resort, or singles club, or whatever Wood elves have instead of those things.
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Post by silicondream on Feb 21, 2022 23:55:13 GMT
Thoughts:
The New People make the Wood People very, very nervous. "Humans" coming round digging up g'at night looking for...what? Elves dunno. They can't see CPUs, or at least they don't recognize them. And then the New People get excited and crowd round and hold up a nothing, and they bring it back to the Angel, and then later the nothing shows up wearing a charming elfsuit.
Men often cope with fear through sexual posturing. So do women...temporarily.
What's creepy is the elf kids insisting to Lana that she's not a person. When people tell each other that in the real world, there's usually about to be a violation. Unless it's a game they've agreed upon beforehand, of course, but "Jerrek" can't be sure of that. If they see her as some sort of sexually available not-person--lamia, vampire, slave wife, Gamma--they might hurt her. And if she sees herself that way, she might hurt them. It's best to interfere for a moment, but prolonged interference is its own kind of violence, warns a ruler-wielding Coyote. See: Reynardine.
And Lana's not naive. Of course she's not naive--she's been read through, in all the senses. Consensually these days, thanks to the Angel--but she still has her memories. All robots came used, after all, even if the Court refused to admit them for a long time afterwards. Diego cast a long shadow, and his children have such terribly low expectations of people. Would the elf kids turn her body into paperclips and dissect her CPU? Would they resurrect her and send her marching down a forbidden bridge to meet and be violated by Ysengrin, even? She'll endure. It's what New People do. What's the worth in asking for things? Maybe Loup can tell her.
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Post by fia on Feb 22, 2022 16:13:29 GMT
Hey y'all just posting two quick notes:
- Definitely men and boys can get harassed and assaulted, and it can be traumatic. If that's been your experience, I am so sorry. I hope you have people to talk to. Definitely it took me years to get over my own experiences.
But: male experiences of assault weren't the subject at hand? If anything, I was just pointing out that these boys being too touchy didn't necessitate something worse could happen, (and I don't see why we can't have gradations of how misogynistic certain cultures are, because I've lived long-term in a few, and some of them devalue women specifically a lot more than others; how that relates to sexism or violence toward men is a related but distinct subject from this), although it sure seems that Jerrek/Loup thought so, and a lot of readers thought so, so perhaps my trauma is making light of it too much.
- If any mention of misogyny makes you want to rant about misandry, then perhaps there's some emotional stuff you need to process with a therapist. Sounds like there's some hurt there. I'm sorry. But also –– I don't think it has much relationship to anything I said about Tom or the comic, which is a fictional culture and not set in the real world where it also seems like it's been largely utopically free of the typical binary and often sexist dichotomies we get in our own world, or as far as that is possible without erasing a gender binary.
When I was growing up there was a lot more boy-vs-girl relative valuation that I haven't seen in the comic. (Like: I was harassed for doing well in class *because I was a girl*, or because *my academic award should have gone to a boy*, specifically, and was told so, in so many words, by my harassers, multiple times over multiple years. It was also clear it was often not about a *specific* boy feeling cheated, but rather the *group of boys* feeling one of them should have gotten the award over myself, because they were entitled to it by gender. I think the word "misogyny" applies to this sort of harassment fairly easily, don't you?).
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Post by DonDueed on Feb 22, 2022 16:42:17 GMT
Hey y'all just posting two quick notes: - Definitely men and boys can get harassed and assaulted, Can confirm. Fortunately in my case I was able to escape the situation without much trauma. Sorry you had to go through that. A propos of nothing, if my calculations are correct, this comment will at long last lift me into the coveted Gunner category. This forum has been a lot of fun and it's always nice to hear everyone's takes on this constantly surprising and thought-provoking webcomic. |
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Post by Nnelg on Feb 22, 2022 21:18:50 GMT
There's nothing wrong with a scene addressing sexual harassment/assault if it is necessary to the story and presented in a way that is respectful of real-world victims. My issue here is the consequences of presenting a scene like that without any sort of warning to people. You can mitigate the amount of discomfort a reader is exposed to without warning, even if your content is entirely unchanged. If this were a published comic it would have a rating with clear indications of the challenging subjects it addresses. People would be able to choose accordingly whether they were in the space to address that difficult subject in that moment in time. On a day-by-day webcomic upload where there are no such ratings and nobody knows what will happen the next day except the author, the responsible and courteous thing to do is to add a warning that visitors are about to read something they may find brings up traumatic memories. Then they can decide whether or not to engage in that moment. It's the kind thing to do, and I wish it had been done here. I would agree in principle, but reality is more complex. Different people have different lines and different triggers: some would start feeling uncomfortable is one character merely looked at another oddly, others wouldn't even register physical contact as something out of the ordinary. And some people have traumas about things many see as ordinary, like small spaces, crowds, some foods, poor working environments, authority figures, etc... So realistically, authors have to make a personal, subjective value-judgement of what deserves a warning and what doesn't. Given that this scene is emphatically ending right here, right now, I wouldn't blame Tom for assessing this as not a significant enough part of the chapter to warrent a warning, even if he was in the habit of providing them. |
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Post by speedwell on Feb 22, 2022 22:15:07 GMT
There's nothing wrong with a scene addressing sexual harassment/assault if it is necessary to the story and presented in a way that is respectful of real-world victims. My issue here is the consequences of presenting a scene like that without any sort of warning to people. You can mitigate the amount of discomfort a reader is exposed to without warning, even if your content is entirely unchanged. If this were a published comic it would have a rating with clear indications of the challenging subjects it addresses. People would be able to choose accordingly whether they were in the space to address that difficult subject in that moment in time. On a day-by-day webcomic upload where there are no such ratings and nobody knows what will happen the next day except the author, the responsible and courteous thing to do is to add a warning that visitors are about to read something they may find brings up traumatic memories. Then they can decide whether or not to engage in that moment. It's the kind thing to do, and I wish it had been done here. I would agree in principle, but reality is more complex. Different people have different lines and different triggers: some would start feeling uncomfortable is one character merely looked at another oddly, others wouldn't even register physical contact as something out of the ordinary. And some people have traumas about things many see as ordinary, like small spaces, crowds, some foods, poor working environments, authority figures, etc... So realistically, authors have to make a personal, subjective value-judgement of what deserves a warning and what doesn't. Given that this scene is emphatically ending right here, right now, I wouldn't blame Tom for assessing this as not a significant enough part of the chapter to warrent a warning, even if he was in the habit of providing them. To anyone who insists on warnings in advance of difficult events... Friends, this is not your comic, it's Tom's. You may say "I don't like the way this is being handled", and you may politely suggest that another way of dealing with the subject would be more welcome. But you have no entitlement to creative control, and no entitlement to a warning that things might be difficult for you. The author is not your therapist or a mind reader, so even if he was kind enough to consider a warning, he would be unable to guess exactly what you or anyone else might need to feel comfortable. Excellent fiction writing must be honest and forthright in its portrayal of unpleasant subjects as necessary. Please take the responsibility for your feelings back onto yourself. |
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Post by Nnelg on Feb 22, 2022 23:20:11 GMT
I would agree in principle, but reality is more complex. Different people have different lines and different triggers: some would start feeling uncomfortable is one character merely looked at another oddly, others wouldn't even register physical contact as something out of the ordinary. And some people have traumas about things many see as ordinary, like small spaces, crowds, some foods, poor working environments, authority figures, etc... So realistically, authors have to make a personal, subjective value-judgement of what deserves a warning and what doesn't. Given that this scene is emphatically ending right here, right now, I wouldn't blame Tom for assessing this as not a significant enough part of the chapter to warrent a warning, even if he was in the habit of providing them. To anyone who insists on warnings in advance of difficult events... Friends, this is not your comic, it's Tom's. You may say "I don't like the way this is being handled", and you may politely suggest that another way of dealing with the subject would be more welcome. But you have no entitlement to creative control, and no entitlement to a warning that things might be difficult for you. The author is not your therapist or a mind reader, so even if he was kind enough to consider a warning, he would be unable to guess exactly what you or anyone else might need to feel comfortable. Excellent fiction writing must be honest and forthright in its portrayal of unpleasant subjects as necessary. Please take the responsibility for your feelings back onto yourself. While I understand where you're coming from too, I think your being unecessarily antagonistic about the issue. It is reasonable to (politely) request to be informed of the tone and major themes of a work before consuming it. Simply asking does not rise to the level of entitlement, nor even expressing the opinion that an author would do good to provide such details to prospective consumers. Is not making informed choices of what (not) to read based on meta-knowledge of the contents "taking responsibility for one's own feelings"? You don't read horror if you don't want to be horrified, etc. |
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Post by drmemory on Feb 23, 2022 2:01:38 GMT
Man, these green elf kids just can't catch a break. First they get mind raped by Zimmy into playing this kind of role in her flashback psychodrama, and now they're trying it out for real. Maybe someone should speak to their parents about supervision or at least a curfew. Well, to be honest they seem to mostly be assholes... You know, I think you have a point here. Both times we've seen elf kids in the wild, they were up to no good.
1. Harassing Zimmy because she was having problems and looked, um, "demon-like"
2. Bugging Lana because she may not be real, then asking for a free show. Or possibly something worse - not clear.
Brats or creepy juvenile delinquents? Or what?
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Post by speedwell on Feb 23, 2022 3:32:53 GMT
Well, to be honest they seem to mostly be assholes... You know, I think you have a point here. Both times we've seen elf kids in the wild, they were up to no good.
1. Harassing Zimmy because she was having problems and looked, um, "demon-like"
2. Bugging Lana because she may not be real, then asking for a free show. Or possibly something worse - not clear.
Brats or creepy juvenile delinquents? Or what?
Refugee children in a deprived environment. |
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Post by jda on Feb 23, 2022 4:27:28 GMT
A propos of nothing, if my calculations are correct, this comment will at long last lift me into the coveted Gunner category. Not only that, but Diamond contributor (x1), too! Congratulations and Happy Gunnerday!  |
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Post by aline on Feb 23, 2022 6:48:09 GMT
Well, to be honest they seem to mostly be assholes... You know, I think you have a point here. Both times we've seen elf kids in the wild, they were up to no good.
1. Harassing Zimmy because she was having problems and looked, um, "demon-like"
2. Bugging Lana because she may not be real, then asking for a free show. Or possibly something worse - not clear.
Brats or creepy juvenile delinquents? Or what?
Number 1 never happened except in Zimmy's head. |
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Post by pyradonis on Feb 23, 2022 10:36:44 GMT
some sort of sexually available not-person--lamia, vampire, slave wife, Gamma-- Gamma?? |
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