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Remember that this is a work of fiction. We can assume someone's found a way to kill Allison that doesn't involve Cleaver nicking an artery when the text brings up the topic. Until then, it's all just reader inference.
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Jul 2, 2014 17:35
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Flesh Forge posted:Yeah everyone recognizes that it was a terrible response but Allison. She's totally fine with it and is pretty much gently caress The Rest Of You People Ima Do This poo poo. I think you're misunderstanding, or at the very least jumping the gun. If the comic were congratulating Allison's hasty and often violent decision-making then I'd see where you're getting at, but it's not and people aren't. This is presented as a character flaw of hers. Would it be more interesting if there were no conflict or tension between what Allison chooses to do and what she should do? The authors obviously know Allison's tendency to over-escalate is wrong or else the comic would be congratulating her and not, you know, trying to reason with her. Allison's actions are also clearly transposed against those of the invisible vigilante throat slasher, who in all likelihood is going to act as both a foil and a warning. The issue of her use of violence isn't resolved and the chapter doesn't even look close to being done. It's not "Tumblr Justice," it's an angry superhuman who wants to do better than just be a blunt instrument against whatever injustices she sees but has a hard time not seeing every single situation as a nail because she's essentially the world's biggest hammer. And that one bystander at the party was suspicious of Allison when she was about to take the drunk girl home. That's why Allison gave her rebuttal. Because he obviously wasn't suspicious of anything when Miles was trying to sneak her out. Also, the whole "shitheels getting murdered" thing is pretty hamfisted, but honestly if there's going to be an Allison v. IVS confrontation, IVS would probably have a harder time making her case if it was even more patently obvious (than it obviously is) that her victims didn't necessarily deserve to die.
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Jul 16, 2014 06:27
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Flesh Forge posted:Yeah see, there's a huge difference between the party scene and the scene where Feral gets firebombed. There, Allison loses her temper* and key point, shortly after she is visibly regretful. At the party she goes way too far in response to a way less serious situation but she's totally self-righteous about it. It's okay here though because gently caress them date rapers yo. Roughing up creepy jerks isn't exactly something that most people tend to angst over. Edit to expand on things: I'm not saying SFP isn't heavy-handed, it loads its social justice like buttering toast with a trowel and honestly it can get ridiculous sometimes. This whole IVS thing is causing so many mixed reactions because it's obviously so contrived, though a few people are reluctant to put it in those exact terms. But while the situations are ham-fisted, you're coming at this from a weird angle by taking issue with the character, Allison. We already know she's hot-headed and self-righteous. She showed regret about nearly killing dozens of civilians in a rage. That's kinda different from saving a drunk girl from being taken advantage of at a party. The thought that "I was this close to murdering all of those people" doesn't elicit the same emotional response as "Those assholes didn't even care that this poor girl could've gotten raped and that creep Miles is a cowardly crybaby." And you know, it's really difficult to be convinced you're wrong if that's what you're thinking, because righteous indignation is a hell of a drug. Now, being able to see this takes a bit of empathy for Allison and her situation. Not being able to see the difference between Allison feeling guilt over nearly murdering a bunch of protestors in a rage and Allison being stubbornly self-righteous about subduing and terrifying some idiot with a nonlethal display of force takes a severe lack of empathy for either Allison or the idiot's would-be victim. How are these inconsistent with what we've seen of Allison's sense of justice? A lot of people are willing to empathize with Miles and are horrified by Allison's actions, both in the comic and in real life, but surprisingly enough not very many people are willing to extend that much consideration for Allison, much less Daphne. Especially Daphne. Remember, the start of the chapter basically spelled out the whole hammer-and-nail thing with Allison's presentation to her class. She didn't realize it at the time, but she was foreshadowing the issue she was about to run into headfirst. She wants to be able to resolve things through talking, through political and social action. She is a walking force of nature used to solving problems by beating them to death, possibly with buildings, maybe with vehicles or lampposts. And even if she doesn't want to admit it, sometimes she just doesn't have the toolbox to handle delicate and pervasive social issues. Carrasco posted:So this page mentions that Moonshadow is both incredibly stealthy and has apparently been off the radar for a while. What're the odds she turns out to be the vigilante? Nice catch. Runa fucked around with this message at 09:18 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 08:14
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Flesh Forge posted:Yes, in that her behavior at the party is much worse because it's objectively much less justified and is a calmly delivered physical assault, but you are going the other way with it (gently caress them date rapers yo!) which is what the author seems to intend. Which is pretty deplorable really. Well, why should she be regretting her actions at this point? She didn't kill anybody, certainly didn't intend to, and merely gave someone a fright and possibly some soiled underpants. From her perspective, she's done nothing wrong. For an ordinary human lifting someone up by their neck seems extreme, but if you're wondering if she somehow has an inconsistent sense of justice from this, you're clearly forgetting one extremely telling moment: She walked up to a supervillain, told him that they were a lot alike, and meant it. She's as angry and frustrated as he is, and if she was in Cleaver's shoes she probably wouldn't have done any differently. She said, without a trace of irony, that the world should be glad she restrains herself as much as she does, because she's often tempted to give in to the urge to release those restraints. If you weren't paying attention, this is the core point of the comic. It's an idea that's been repeated again and again. This isn't something the authors "didn't intend," the difference between what Allison could do, should do, and does do is the central moral conflict driving Allison's character arc. This is who she is, as much as disproportionately lethal retribution defines the Punisher and superhuman invincible rage defines the Hulk. And I chose those examples specifically, because she's very, very at risk of becoming either. She's afraid of what happens if she lets her rage take her over. But she doesn't yet realize the slippery slope of what is or is not justifiable force could lead to situations like the IVS. What about my reading of the situation and how Allison interprets the situation makes the author, or me, deplorable? But seriously though, if mildly roughing somebody up is worse than threatening to commit mass murder then every character Jackie Chan has ever played is a complete monster. Runa fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 10:30
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Flesh Forge posted:I'm totally on board with the idea the Power Corrupts, and that Allison is kind of a terrible person when you get right down to it, but I'm really pretty sure that the author does not intend this. What you are saying is literally that Might Makes Right, which is fundamentally a really terrible outlook that is super common in comic books and other media like say Mein Kampf. I guess I'm the dumb one for hoping this particular comic's protagonist aspired to better ideals. Feel free to jump to conclusions, but in future bear in mind that the failure to live up to an ideal does not mean one is not aspiring towards it. Also,  Edit: It's growing more apparent that my now-struckout reaction was a misunderstanding, and for what it's worth that's on me. Runa fucked around with this message at 13:35 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 12:30
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Flesh Forge posted:Now you're getting personal because I have differing opinions about a webcomic dude. Step back. Sorry, it's just that you're tripping some classic "I'm actually just a troll" flags here. There is literally no reason to bring up Mein Kampf except to invoke Godwin's Law, after all. I mean you literally, if indirectly, just now equated a webcomic character with Hitler because she scared-but-not-seriously-harmed an alleged potential rapist. If you think my reaction to that was a personal attack and not merely an expression of exasperation, welp. And if you're citing the party scene as evidence that Allison lacks ideals, again, recall what I said about using empathy to gain perspective into a character's actions. The thing about slippery slopes is that it's a lot easier to slip down them if you can justify them to yourself. She was clearly acting rashly due to what she perceived to be an impending crisis, because that's what she does. Might makes right is problematic (but also not exactly something you can ignore on a purely practical level, we live in a world where might really does make right, and if that weren't the case then sovereign governments wouldn't feel compelled to maintain a monopoly of force to remain sovereign or even functional), and Allison is going to have to get over herself and grow up, but do you really have to be so sanctimonious about it?
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Jul 16, 2014 12:53
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Flesh Forge posted:"Sorry but" nice! You also keep missing the point, that the comic is pandering to the gently caress The Date Raper demographic here (I guess you are in this demographic). Not that Date Rapers are precious things that need to be defended but I can think of various nonviolent approaches to interrupting Miles that the author chose not to depict. I'm not exactly the kind of person to get really offended when a jerk gets, say, punched or something. I'm totally down with seeing a character sock another character in the jaw for being a dick, so all this hand-wringing about lifting up some shifty guy at a party looks disproportionate. Honestly this situation is only getting special attention because he's an alleged rapist and not just some rear end in a top hat.
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Jul 16, 2014 13:14
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You can still gauge one's response to a fictional situation based on personal perspective, though.
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Jul 16, 2014 13:22
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Your response to the scene was really disproportionate to what actually happened, so yeah, it's kind of easy to see why people are getting a vibe off your arguments you didn't intend. I have a hard time believing the response to Allison's use of force would be nearly this severe if she were a male superhero. We already saw Miles grow visibly aggressive after his vague and logically inconsistent responses failed to satisfy Allison's query. And she only took physical action when he started to get confrontational. And she left him for the most part physically unharmed, which is better than he would've gotten had he gotten that aggressive at a bar. Just so we're clear, over the past pages we saw someone unironically cast aspersions towards people who disagreed with them that their arguments weren't borne from reason or values but rather a vindictive urge to say "gently caress those date rapers." And with it, the implicit suggestion that vindictiveness towards those who commit sexual violence is wrong and that we should be ashamed of feeling that way. On top of that, the same person unironically, if indirectly, compared a webcomic character to Hitler for the heinous crime of nonlethally subduing an aggressive alleged date rapist. And that posted wanted anyone who disagrees with them to feel ashamed for not being as morally upright as they were. Sorry if you were offended by me thinking you were a troll, Flesh Forge, but holy poo poo how are you not a troll Runa fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Jul 18, 2014 |
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Jul 18, 2014 02:44
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Patrick Spens posted:http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-5/page-20-3/ Honestly I'd be more surprised if Allison's tendency to use force weren't addressed and discussed in the rest of the chapter. Is it appropriate? Probably not. She's not a monster, but she ain't exactly a saint. A lot worse could've happened if Allison hadn't shown what restraint she did, but a lot of people agree she didn't show enough. I'm not particularly perturbed though. If Allison weren't superhuman and didn't have the ability to shut the situation down in an instant, it could've gone poorly for her. Miles didn't seem the type to react calmly or reasonably when caught, even setting aside his willingness to take advantage of someone's intoxication as a replacement for consent. But she did have the ability to shut him down, quickly, and without injuring him. Gave him the fright of his life, though. (All that aside, what kind of idiot gets aggressive with Mega-Girl? She breaks poo poo constantly without even trying, super-accuracy is not one of her anomalies.) I do think it's very telling that nobody really noticed or cared that she casually used a not-insignificant amount of life-threatening superstrength to interrogate a man whose only power seems to be "is a man and also a rat," but she manhandles a probable rapist and it's a mild controversy that she would stoop so low as to mete out Tumblr justice. Runa fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Jul 18, 2014 |
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Jul 18, 2014 06:51
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Captain Bravo posted:When this happens, you can try to rework your... work, so that it becomes more clearly understood. Or you can try to talk it out with people and explain what they're misunderstanding. But by and large, the most effective method is to ignore the idiots. If a majority of people aren't picking up what you're putting down, you need to take another look at your content. But if a small minority refuses to get your message, and refutes all attempts at explanation, chalk it up as an unavoidable loss and move on. Otherwise you're just feeding the drat trolls. Obviously this lecture is meant for the creator of a work, but it seems like a bit of advice some people in this thread might want to consider taking as well. That's fair. It's easy to forget sometimes that it's just not worth it getting into a pissing match on the internet. As far as Rat goes, even when it was current, nobody really noticed it or paid it much mind and the comic certainly didn't dwell on Allison's casual use of excessive force. Here, the comic did spend a fair amount of time pointing out Allison's excessive use of force, even if it also highlighted some of the basic hypocrisies of rape culture in the process of it. In that incident, an apparently harmless mook is kicked high up into the air and trapped in a trash can, and even Allison's attempt to give him breathing/speaking holes was at serious risk of killing him if she pushed her fingers a little too far in. There were no bystanders to react with horror, so we didn't have any frame of reference to judge this except by what we already knew. She was a "superhero," he was a "mook," and he also had unfortunate visual signifiers that would indicate that he's an "acceptable" target (being distinctly ratlike). If the comic itself didn't draw attention to Allison's actions at the party, how many of us would have noticed? This clearly demonstrates authorial intent to address Allison's use of force. The author could very easily have ignored it like in the Rat interrogation scene. And Allison's hardline stubbornness the morning after is clearly presented as a flaw and an unwillingness to reason, not as proof of her righteousness. I won't admit that seeing Miles get held up wasn't cathartic, however. Yak of Wrath posted:I agree that the scene was meant to be ambiguous, Alison was right to step in, I don't even feel the issue is with the fact she was choking Miles, but that ultimately whatever action she took there, whether a firm grip on the shoulder, or simply blocking him from leaving comes with the fact that she is Mega-girl and this isn't going to happen by virtue of implied violence. You can see this in the response from the other party goers, they see Miles having a drunken hookup, not Miles is going to assault a woman who cannot consent; this is a societal issue that as Mega-girl she can't solve. Which is one of the major themes of the comic, Mega-girl can prevent crime on the individual level, but can't enact change on the society issues that lead to crime in the first place, so now she is exploring what she can do as Alison Greene. The partygoers' reaction, and more importantly lack of reaction prior to Allison taking action, did feel like the bigger issue that Allison tried to address. She wasn't speaking from smugness when she asked if they could see Daphne now, that was cold indignation. Ironically, her use of violence drew more attention to her actions and not the real issue, that all of them were willing and able to let Miles get away with taking advantage of a girl they didn't know, all because they did know him.
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Jul 18, 2014 09:41
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Tollymain posted:what? The RIAA is notorious for its disproportionate retribution.
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Aug 17, 2014 02:15
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There's no way those poor mercs are getting out of there alive.
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Sep 13, 2014 03:25
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Pavlov posted:I really hope she just has a good sense of humor and didn't just pull a serious "all men are rapists". I really hope you didn't just seriously misread the line as "all men are rapists." Projecting, much?
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Sep 17, 2014 03:20
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Oh, I see. People are interpreting that as Moonshadow making a syllogism about men and rapists as opposed to boys. Rather than her justifying the murders she committed based on the alleged crimes of her victims rather than just focusing on her victims' age (and gender). Had to stop and think about it because I don't really care that a crazy serial killer might be a hardcore militant misandrist and don't have the mindset to immediately think that, if this were the case, that this represents the comic's core messaging and not, in fact, the latest supervillain being a villain and making their spiel. Honestly, if you think Allison and Moonshadow are going to get together and have a #KillAllMen campfire because of how similar their views must be, I don't know what to say.
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Sep 17, 2014 04:02
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Slashrat posted:I'm curious why she felt these guys needed a sporting chance when she was perfectly fine with slitting the the throats of the boys and the judge with no warning. Is massacring Iraqi civilians somehow less of a crime than acquitting a quad of boys in the rape case that you preside over as a judge? She wanted practice. And probably some sadistic-by-righteous-indignation fun.
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Sep 19, 2014 10:29
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Told y'all she wasn't right in the head.
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Sep 30, 2014 09:27
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That alt-text basically sums up my thoughts.
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Oct 18, 2014 03:18
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As I said, the alt-text basically sums up my thoughts. Here at Excelsior, we believe in providing solutions for the problems of tomorrow, innovating new technologies for a changing world, and PUNCHING THE SUN!!! Live a little, people.
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Oct 18, 2014 04:24
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Considering how we already had some people speculating about Paladin, maybe a peek into her mind might be worth something.
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Nov 19, 2014 03:47
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And some people didn't believe in the SUN PUNCH.
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Dec 24, 2014 00:39
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Hollismason posted:This is boring as hell. I thought this was all kind of going somewhere but nope. 
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Dec 25, 2014 03:59
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But seriously, realtalk, this is a problem with using long form pacing when you can only produce a couple of pages a week and have to present them to the public as soon as they're made. In other words: Webcomics.
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Dec 25, 2014 04:05
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Mr.Pibbleton posted:That would explain why nobody posted in here for eleven days. Unironically yes.
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Dec 27, 2014 05:55
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Carrasco posted:Moonshadow probably drew that dick on his door, too. Now that's just rude. 
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Jan 9, 2015 10:06
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Hell, Moonshadow might just want to see Allison take some heat and feel the burn. And she also gets to kill a guy, which is well-established as something she's big on. Remember, there's bad blood between them even if Allison only recently heard about it.
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Jan 9, 2015 16:44
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Not sure what her angle is, playing dumb to her handler like this. But it's not like Allison's known for making good decisions so hey. If this is all a leadup to Allison getting the feds out of the way so she can have a one-on-one chat with Moonshadow then this situation is probably going to end badly for her.Hollismason posted:Guess I'll let these people take as much technical information and biological information on me as humanly possible , no way they'd figure out some way past my abilities. It's either play ball with the feds and get reg'd up or go rogue like the supervillains. Did you think the government was going to fork over all of that sweet funding to a teenage superhero team with no strings attached? But yes having the limits of her powers constantly studied and tested is absolutely going to gently caress her over later.
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Jan 28, 2015 04:05
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At least you're not arguing with a guy who unironically compared Allison to Hitler
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Feb 5, 2015 05:08
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The alt-text is on point as usual.
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Feb 7, 2015 04:46
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Some people take longer to come up with a good zinger.
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Feb 20, 2015 10:18
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The Doc's perspective on the matter is cold, brutal, pragmatic, and uncomfortably frank. It makes the issue of the morality of violence against sexual predators seem short-sighted compared to the macro issue of the entire world potentially being very violently upended by people and demographics traditionally without power now having a surplus of it. The Moonshadow case is just a single, gruesome example of this phenomenon. It was a nice touch, I thought, hammering home the horrifying scope of real-world statistics of domestic violence fatalities and how little attention people give them compared to how discussion practically exploded around this arc's high-profile murders (and one assault, by Allison). Honestly, it makes those pages and pages of lovely arguments feel like a serious case of missing the forest for the trees.
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Feb 20, 2015 12:23
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Welcome our new long-term cast regular, That Fire Dick who's talking to the news all the time.
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Mar 6, 2015 13:22
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At this point the guy should just show up in every newscast to poo poo on Allison, basically turn it into a job. He could get hired by Fox News.
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Mar 8, 2015 13:43
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Goodbye, Furnace. You were amusing for a while.
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Mar 10, 2015 13:39
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Any excuse for a slumber party, I say. 
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Mar 19, 2015 06:54
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Mar 24, 2015 10:30
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Dancing trilobites will be the end of us all.
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Apr 1, 2015 01:26
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Oh, Patrick. 
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Apr 3, 2015 13:43
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It's outright stated multiple times he's more manipulative than mind control because he can tell you exactly what you need to hear to do his bidding. And he's been hinted at being up to some shady stuff. Honestly, what would make a real twist would be a reveal that he was actually being honest the entire time.
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Apr 13, 2015 09:22
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That's not Allison's violence face.
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Apr 21, 2015 11:25
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