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Captain Oblivious posted:So, basically the exact same situation he was obviously engineering on someone else. This is the obvious comparison they're trying to bring up. Does that make it OK? Do the ends justify the means? Granted it's a lot more nuanced than "IS IT OK TO RAPE RAPISTS!?" but it still draws a definite line between using force to secure a goal, and in what contexts that becomes acceptable. That being said, dude was asking for a face-punch. SFP's writer is really good at nailing that "Oh my lord, I want to end this son of a bitch" feeling.
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Jun 17, 2014 20:35
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idonotlikepeas posted:2. Alison was not thinking in a strategic way. She was thinking in a "NO WAY AM I GOING TO LET THIS GIRL GET DATERAPED WHEN I CAN STOP IT" and a "gently caress THIS GIGANTIC RAPING rear end in a top hat" way. Her actions were not to make a global point, but to save this one person, because that's often how superheroes behave. From this point of view, what she did was laudable, and it's probably a lot closer to the way most of us would behave in that situation if we had super-strength (and were not afraid to act). And that's another important aspect to the situation, and one where her friend... well may not be right, but at least is hitting closer to home than can be comfortable. The entire reason Alison stopped being Mega-Girl was because she wasn't fixing anything. She stopped some supervillians, but did so in a very casualty-rich way, and didn't actually do any meaningful good. She said it herself, when fighting Cleaver. That's what she's used to doing, and it feels good, even if it's almost meaningless in the end. Her first instinct was to jump back into that role. To be the hero, save the girl, fix the immediate problem with the immediate solution. I would wager that she probably didn't even really consciously assault the dude, she just instinctively choke-grabbed him. And that's where poo poo went off the rails. Because she immediately dropped back into the "Superhero vs. Supervillain" role she's so used to, and she can't really see that. You can blame the partygoers all you want for turning a blind eye to Miles, but they still have their reasons for doing so. He's a friend, it's a regular thing, she's "asking for it", they know each other, etc. There's a billion excuses they use to not see him as a bad guy. And the most important thing, as a reader, we don't know for a fact that he is a bad guy. He's purposefully written as an arrogant, entitled douche, and the kind of person we would easily believe as being a rapist, but we don't know poo poo for fact. All this adds up to a situation where Alison sees it as black and white, good vs. evil, and she's surrounded by people who disagree. Her friend is 100% correct in that she's instantly reverting back to the kind of life she led as a superhero, and is being recklessly dangerous with her use of force. Alison is also right, in that her friend is ignoring a real situation with a real solution, in favor of not having to think too hard about the people she chooses to surround herself with. The whole thing is one giant shade of grey, with nobody truly 100% correct.
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Jun 18, 2014 19:21
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Holy poo poo, you guys are seriously going to fall back on the "Oh, so you're defending rapists!?" scarecrow? Nobody here is defending rapists, or saying that complacency is not an issue. You'll notice, in fact, that I point out the partygoers are being enablers by choosing not to see the potential problem happening.quote:Alison is also right, in that her friend is ignoring a real situation with a real solution, in favor of not having to think too hard about the people she chooses to surround herself with. But do you guys seriously believe that if it seems likely someone is a criminal, any degree of force is then ok to use against them? That's literally the exact point this chapter is making, by paralleling Alison's actions with the vigilante from the chapter start. Alison, and a surprising number of people posting in this thread, seem to believe that once someone gets placed in the "bad guy" category, whether or not they are 100% certain to belong in that catagory, an overwhelming amount of force is then justified against them. That line of thinking is exactly what leads to the vigilante from the start of the chapter. For christ's sake, there is a middle ground between "I think this guy intends to rape this woman!" and "I will pick him up by the throat, that is a perfectly normal course of action here." It's blatantly obvious Alison has reverted to "Pissed off righteousness" mode, the author makes this pretty clear with the tiny, beady eyes. Seriously, go look back through the archives, whenever she's pissed off and certain she's in the right, the author draws her with the tiny eyes. She disregarded the sheer amount of strength she has over an opponent, because she was certain the dude was a "bad guy". Whether he is or isn't is not the point. Everyone arguing whether or not he's a rapist is missing the point so hard, I'm surprised you can even tell there is one. The point is that Alison doesn't know that for certain, yet she's acting like she does. She would be 100% in the right to assume there's the possibility, or even probability, that he's going to rape her, and move to get the girl to safety. Even calling him out to point out his behavior as not ok, still perfectly ok. Shooting straight to violence in a situation she can't possibly be certain about is Alison's MO, and that struggle is one of the underlying themes of the comic. Seriously, the talk with Cleaver spells it all out pretty clearly. She instinctively resorts to violence, because it's all she's known, and more importantly because it's satisfying. She obviously has issues, and acknowledges those herself to Cleaver. Just because her friend is in the wrong about Miles doesn't mean her friend doesn't also have a point about Alison. Two different people can be wrong and right about different things at the same time. That's where "shades of grey" comes into it. To reiterate: Whether or not the dude was going to rape the girl is not the point of the story. Alison was 100% in the right to take action. Alison was definitely not in the right to go as far as she did. Her friend is wrong to skim over the actions of Miles for personal reasons. Her friend is right to call Alison out on abusing her superpowers, something Alison herself has acknowledged in the past. Rape is being used as a plot device here, nothing more, nothing less. The real story is what's going on with Alison, the protagonist of the comic.
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Jun 18, 2014 23:51
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Level Slide posted:I think Paladin is the killer Oh thank god, I'm not the only one.
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Jun 19, 2014 19:06
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I also like the nice touch there of having Cleaver not be up to date on technology. He has goddamned knives for hands, of course he's not going to know poo poo about the internet or technology, he can't use any of it! The last time he probably watched a video that someone else didn't start for him was when he was a kid.
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Jun 20, 2014 00:04
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idonotlikepeas posted:Actually, it depends. Related offenses can be tried at the same time even if they aren't the same crime. I was on a jury for a racketeering trial where a couple of people were being tried for arson, a couple of others for money laundering, etc. If Jake "only" filmed the action he might have been up on a conspiracy charge with the rest of them. (All you have to do for a conspiracy charge is reach an agreement with one or more other people to break the law in the future.) That'd be enough to put them all in the same trial. I love any opportunity to link to this: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=18 I believe it's about two chapters in that they discuss being an accomplice, and what you can and can't be charged with. 
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Jun 20, 2014 00:46
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Pavlov posted:Wait, even if the old guy was a dick, why would she kill him for being the judge at the trial? If it was a real criminal trial, the judge didn't actually decide if the boys were innocent or not, the jury did. The judge would have a say in sentencing, but that's only if they were found guilty to begin with. Otherwise the old dude probably just spent the whole trial looking stern and occasionally saying "sustained" and "overruled". I love this thread, two opportunities to link to LawComics in two pages.  Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 There is a reason that Appeals exist, and there's a reason that almost every frikkin trial ever ends up before an appellate panel. Edit: ashweh posted:Though that may be kind of confusing storytelling, but the character also headed on a bus to New York and is probably not in the same town as the start of the chapter. Who knows how far away from New York "Chesterton" is, though? If it's Chesterton Indiana, then sure that makes it a long shot. If it's some town in Pennsylvania, or New Jersey, or even in upstate New York? It makes perfect sense. Remember, biiig felonies go to big courts, you wouldn't try a major rape case in the Podunksville city hall, plus a big case like this would also probably be moved to try and find an unbiased jury. More than likely, the trial was held in or around New York, and had been moved from Chesterton. The reason all four were in a car on a dark road is because they were more than likely driving home. The real key question, is how did Miss Invisible manage to track them down to a specific gas station a few minutes after they pulled in? She doesn't have a car, otherwise why would she get on a bus? Did she stow away in their vehicle, and then for some reason wait until they got out before killing them? Did she just hang around that gas station in the off-chance they stopped at it on the way back? How did she know where they would be!? Captain Bravo fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Jul 1, 2014 |
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Jul 1, 2014 20:37
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Captain Bravo posted:I love this thread, two opportunities to link to LawComics in two pages. Once more, with feeling!
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Jul 4, 2014 23:31
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Tulul posted:It's frustrating, because I want to like this comic way more than I do, but the complete lack of subtlety feels really offputting, particularly when it tries to approach social situations. It ends up feeling really preachy and soapboxy and occasionally strawmany, which isn't particularly fun or interesting to read even when I agree with the author. This is why I've been frustrated with the comic for this arc. I loved Cleaver, especially the talk with him. The protesters were... a little off, but overall still pretty good. But holy poo poo the party and the judge are just terrible. Absolutely terrible. "This guy is a date rapist. You know this not only because he's trying to date-rape this girl, but also because he looks like a bro, and is unnaturally aggressive towards the invincible main character, and is also a skeevy whiny bitch. This judge let the rapists get off. He did so because he's a wife-beater, definitely sexist and probably an old southern racist too, hell lets toss in some slight implications of child abuse and pedophilia while we're at it!" Christ. I mean, sure, Picasso laid it on thick. But he did so with a brush, not a hose. Cliches and stereotypes are a crutch for writers to quickly and easily give character information to the audience. Not only does her writing seem like it should be beyond that need, she's layering additional stuff on top of the cliche, just to make doubly sure we're positive these are lovely people. And honestly, the subject content of the comic makes me think that she would probably be a lot more comfortable writing subject matter that doesn't reinforce the concept of making snap judgements about people. Captain Bravo fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Jul 8, 2014 |
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Jul 8, 2014 12:13
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But that's the thing, the judge wasn't murdered because he's a wife-beater, he wasn't murdered because of his antiquated, sexist values, (Although they certainly played a part.) or the implication that he abused his children. He was murdered because someone thought, whether correctly or incorrectly, that he let rapists get out of justice. The black eye plays no part in that. The "Why won't our daughters call?" plays no part in that. His entire character in the two pages we see plays absolutely zero part in the reason why he was murdered, it's just piling on additional bad things so that the audience really gets the point that he was a bad person. I love the point the comic is trying to make right now, check back a few pages where I laid it out, Alison does have to have a hard sober look at how much force is reasonable to bring to bear. But for the last 10-16 pages it's been mired under bullshit piled on to guarantee that the audience won't in any way identify with the bad guys. It's putting these people in comically extreme positions which have nothing to do with the crime they're being punished for, and while it may be for a good reason it just comes off as really crude and blunt.
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Jul 9, 2014 07:28
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You can have an issue with events that happen in a story without having to wait until the end. If we have a problem with the depiction of a character who dies, it's not like that loving character is going to have a third-act reveal. Sexist Judge is gone, dead, he plays no more parts in the story, and I'd be willing to bet that our interactions with Miles are finished as well. The next 5, 10, or 20 pages are not going to be able to retroactively turn their crappy characterization into something better. The story overall may have more to go to flesh out the reasons for Alison and IVS doing what they do, and learning from their actions, but that doesn't change the fact that the story elements used so far are sloppy and weak. And since those story elements have concluded, it's perfectly fine to bitch about them. If somehow in the next half-chapter the author manages to flesh out the character of wife-beating, child-abusing, sexist old judge, I'll gladly eat these words. But I very much doubt that will happen.
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Jul 14, 2014 13:04
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Christ, how are we having this argument again? I know for a fact some of you were posting during the first go-around, and you surely can't have forgotten:ChairMaster posted:Eh, I disagree. If you're stronger than anyone else in the world there's no reason not to use that strength to make things better and scare lovely people. Captain Oblivious posted:Was lifting him by the neck necessary? Probably not, no. Is it a particularly big deal? Nah, gently caress 'im. ChairMaster posted:She just picked him up by his neck, big deal. thatbastardken posted:Not saying that she doesn't have issues with enjoying violence, but this was an appropriate use of force. Phylodox posted:gently caress people who want to defend date rapists. gently caress people who want to stop and talk about it and maybe discuss how there are two sides to every story, man. Phylodox posted:Seriously, I'm kind of taken aback at the lengths to which people are going to inject "shades of grey" into this. Several people completely miss the point of the panel. Several posters in this very thread have done exactly what Flesh Forge complained about, and absorbed the message that the violence was perfectly justified. Flesh Forge is an idiot, in that he can't seem to understand the basic concept that the audience can sometimes take away a message that is not what the author intended. But he still had... some semblance of a point, that a good number of posters in this thread found Alison's actions perfectly acceptable, and did not glean the tiniest bit of the nuance the author was intending to interject into the scene. The hilarious part is that FF is also misreading authorial intent, and decided to keep arguing that point after literally being told from the author what the intent was. So that got a good laugh out of me. Also, in regards to the Rat thing, yeah she did use too much force there as well. But nobody commented on it because the thread was started about two chapters after that whole thing happened, and the Miles situation is what was happening during the first few pages. Plus there's only been a handful of new pages since, so not a whole lot of discussion fodder to move the conversation forward. One thing I think people keep missing, in various ways, is that creating media is not just a one-and-done. Media is, at the very least, a three-pronged approach. An author has an idea they want to convey, generally with some kind of a point or message. They produce work that encapsulates the message they want to send. (Encoding) And then, most importantly, the audience takes their work, and tries to glean a message from it. (Decoding) At any point in the entire affair, spanners can and do get gummed up in the works. The author may not have a clear message they're trying to send. (Probably not the case here) In the creation of the work, the message the author is trying to send might get muddled, or confused. Or the work might have other issues unrelated to the message being encoded. (This is what I was talking about when I was complaining about how two-dimensional and hamfisted the "bad guys" in this chapter are.) And then the audience will decode the work in their own individual ways. No matter how clear the message, no matter how well-done the media, there will always be some people that flat-out don't get it. That take away a point completely different than what the author intended. Sometimes, this is the author's fault, in this case I think it's almost certainly completely on the viewer end, but no matter the reason the fact is that the message which was intended to be sent did not transmit. 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. And, to actually move the conversation forward here, I am actually creeped out a little by how closely I can connect with Brad here. I'm basically in that exact situation now, where I've had to quit a work enviroment in which most everyone has been trying so hard to keep all the pieces together. It really, really sucks to work alongside people, befriend them, share in their struggles... and one day just say "Enough, it's not working, I can't do this anymore." Of course, I imagine it's a bit harder when you have a bat-face and your coworkers are superheroes, but still! Everything I was complaining about weeks ago with feeling disconnected from the comic has utterly evaporated in the last two pages, because holy poo poo I empathize with Brad so much. Seriously, if they show a scene where Pintsize tries to passive-aggressively guilt Brad into not leaving, I'll be convinced that the author is spying on me. 
Captain Bravo fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Jul 18, 2014 |
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Jul 18, 2014 09:11
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Squidster posted:But Allison doesn't look threatening. If she was in costume, carrying a gun, or otherwise embodying the trademark symbols of danger, I doubt Miles would pushed his luck. Even after she's just picked him up like a toy, she still doesn't code as 'nightmare' to anyone in the same way knife-hands McCancer does. She looks like a thin college student of the sort no one pays much attention to. Also, don't forget that Alison arrived to the superhero theme party she was specifically invited to by leaping onto the roof like a boss. Everyone watched. Some even took pictures. Maybe this dude has some severe mental retardation or short-term memory loss, but at one point he definitely knew that she was extremely biodynamic, even if he wasn't aware she was Mega-Girl.
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Jul 18, 2014 20:24
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Fried Chicken posted:I checked the arrival page, he's not there when she shows; I'd expect he was off (I don't know the right verbage here, isolating? finding?) the drunk girl at the time and has no idea who he is talking to. The drunk girl is one of the people taking a picture of Alison. You're right, though, he's not explicitly drawn into the scene, so maybe he somehow missed the biggest event of the party?
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Jul 18, 2014 20:51
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Captain Oblivious posted:She knew, she just didn't remember. There's a difference. I don't understand how the comic can be more blatent with the "Brad sees Alison as more of a friend than Alison sees brad" by having him remember details about her family and struggles, and her not remember anything about his. Whether he checked a facebook update, or got a call from her mom with the news, the fact is he seems to care more about Alison and her family than she cares about his. If it was as simple as a facebook update, it begs the question why Alison doesn't seem to bother reading Brads? Remember the golden rule of comics/movies/books/etc. If the author shows it to you, it's for a reason. We're not viewing someone's life, we're viewing the scenes from that life the creator decides to put in. If you see something in a panel, there's probably a reason for it. If you see something stretched over multiple panels, it's almost certainly important. If you see something which has been referenced numerous times and is one of the main themes of the comic... yes, you can probably spin a grand narrative out of it.
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Jul 20, 2014 19:55
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I'm fairly sure those are Transformers dudes. Probably posted in wrong thread?
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Jul 21, 2014 03:39
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idonotlikepeas posted:Hector might also be rich on his own. Maybe he shrunk real small and designed powerful microcircuitry or something. I think that's actually implied by the comic, seeing as he has his own nano-scale equipment. I can only imagine that he shrunk down to a size where he could easily assemble it all himself.
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Jul 21, 2014 15:22
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I don't think Hector can shrink things down other than himself and his clothes, though. Remember, he takes a jet to New York, and then launches a different, smaller jet from the first. If he could shrink his equipment, why would he need a second jet?
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Jul 22, 2014 00:39
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The point they're bringing up is that at what point do you draw the line? There's always something more you theoretically could be doing, but if you spend all your time trying to figure out the best way to do things, you miss out on your opportunity to actually do things. If Alison is the Hipster Superhero, this is her Kryptonite. Hipsters have a stereotype of spending all their time worrying about what they should do without actually doing anything. Spending years in college for degrees they don't use, working part-time jobs because they don't want to get sucked into a career that isn't what they were "meant" to do in life. Alison could start saving lives, now, in small but definitive ways. It wouldn't solve anything in the grand scheme of things, but it would see results. The reason she doesn't is because she wants to find a way to change things in a deeper and larger manner. The thing that will become the key piece of the puzzle, and that I believe Hector will probably bring up, is what guarantee does Alison have that she will find that way to make a difference? That's when the whole things breaks down. Alison is gambling that the lives she doesn't save now, by actually going out and making a thousand small contributions, will be overshadowed by the lives she'll save when she makes a fundamental change for the better. But she has no idea what that change will be, how she'll make it, and how it will make things better. She's gambling in a game she doesn't even understand, and if it doesn't pan out she will be crushed. Edit: What's really great about all this is how the metaphor wraps right back around and finishes itself neatly. Alison is a superheroic metaphor for hipsters. Whereas a 20-something might get an art degree, never use it, and work as a Barista for 10 years while planning to write the Great American Novel, Alison fights superheros, quits doing that to better herself, and now waffles between making small impacts and trying to figure out how she can make a big one. Alison's superherobro Feral takes the opposite choice, giving her body up for organ donation and making an important difference in thousands of lives, one bit at a time. And in real life, the metaphor is for women who decide to have children. Giving up their body and at least 18 years of their lives to a child. Seriously, it fits so well. Read that chapter again, except replace all the superhero terms with poo poo like "pregnant", "settling down" and "can't have an epidural." Captain Bravo fucked around with this message at 12:51 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 12:43
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You know, I had completely forgotten about that. Good point!
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Aug 21, 2014 13:56
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Warmachine posted:The part missing in your interpretation is the argument being used against the regeneration organ farm types: they're the exact same as what philanthropists and charities have been doing all this time. They're band-aids. Maybe much bigger than your average band-aid, but none-the-less, they're just temporary stop gaps that don't actually affect meaningful change. One dude getting a heart is wonderful and all, but on the macro level, there are still billions in poverty, heart disease is still something that requires new hearts, and so on. We don't have a satisfactory answer yet for the "do small acts of ultimately meaningless kindness," or "keep looking for the home run of change at the expense of hundreds of smaller acts." I doubt the answer is lot of small stuff, because if it was lots of small stuff, we wouldn't have the problems in the first place. That's the conclusion Alison has come to as well. Right, and the comic knows this. It's the entire point of it. Remember, Alison represents privilege. If you took a census of the entire timeline of the human race, any average, modern, first-world adolescent is among the top .00000001% in terms of quality of life. Hell, if you take a census of right now, they're still in the top 1% or so. (Which made the "1% movement" deliciously schadenfreude-y) Nowadays, the majority of people living in the US, Europe, etc. are basically demigods. And with great privilege, comes great mental steps to duck responsibility. I wasn't being flippant when I made the comparison to a 20-something barista in a modern city. No one person today is going to fix the world. No one person in SFP is going to fix the world. Alison is (probably) deluding herself by thinking so. Writing off actual, real change as "A band-aid" is a coping mechanism to come to terms with the fact that she isn't actively doing anything to make things better. Helping one person will not save the world. Helping 0 people does less to save the world. The thing is, when you color things in a binary, "Entire world is saved" vs. "Entire world is not saved" it makes sense to not sweat the small stuff. When you actually look at things in terms of "percentage of people doing alright", you can see how every small bit of effort makes a difference. The real problem comes from self-esteem. Right now, the world population is 7 billion people, give or take. That means that doing something which changes one person's life affects .0000001% of the population. You see it in those terms, and it becomes a matter of "Is it really worth the effort?" You don't want to make a difference, you want to make a significant difference. To be fair, Alison was pressured into this. It's the whole thing with the news interview asking if she'll go to war with China, people were pressuring her into making a bigger difference, and she rejects that. But she's still trapped in that mindset, it's been drilled into her, and so she can't come to terms with truly being happy making a small effort. In the same way that so many Millennials have been brought up into believing that they'll do something great, and become disillusioned when their life doesn't reflect that. Hell, I might as well just link the drat monkeysphere, because it really ought to be required reading. When you think of masses of people as a giant abstract, when you're not visualizing individual faces, names, and families, it's too easy to fall into a trap of depersonalizing people. This exact strategy is exploited in a lot of unwholesome ways by a lot of unsavory individuals. When you get close, and start thinking of people in terms of "Bob", "Dan", and "Akeem", it becomes a lot harder to ignore the call to action. Which is why so many people choose to purposely isolate themselves from the entire shebang, because it's a lot easier to ignore the actual impact you are able to make on society and just decry the whole thing as "broken" when you're interacting as little as possible with it. This swings both ways, and the author is savvy enough to exploit this. It's also easier to ignore the reprehensible things people do when you have a personal relationship with them. "He's not a rapist, that's Miles from Philosophy class!" Again, Alison reinforces her character traits by explicitly denouncing that way of thinking. Now, of course, she was right in that instance, but the comic immediately swings things around, and has the girl's friend bring up the flip-side. By being involved in her life, they know she does this often. They know the uniqueness of that girl, and how things could be improved in her life. Alison does not, she only sees the girl as a statistic (drunk girl who almost got raped) and as a demographic. (20-something year old young woman) When Alison's world view is again confronted, this time by someone she can't write off as obviously being in the wrong, she bugs out. Alison, by virtue of her past, has learned not to see people too close. She has a breakdown when she digs too deep into a professor's life, and realizes the consequences her actions can have. She saved people in such large, broad swathes that she never got a chance to really connect with any one of them. And she reflexively avoids becoming too close with anyone outside her family and close friends, because it just becomes that much harder to try and keep focus on her "big picture". Which, again, I've pointed out becomes a major issue when you realize that her "big picture" is nothing more than a pipe dream at this point. It's a hope and a prayer, with nothing to back it up save that she's really good at punching robots. It becomes a vicious cycle, in which a teenage Alison rebels against people depending on her to solve all their problems, but is still so stuck in that mindset that she still believes she must solve all of their problems. She oscillates between the realism of what she can do, and the idealism of what she believes she should do. I would bet that the big chapter showdown which seems to be building is going to force her to come face-to-face with this.
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Aug 25, 2014 14:53
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You said the magic words!
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Aug 28, 2014 22:10
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rotinaj posted:The only thing limiting Hector is that he has a child's idea of what he can do with his powers. Which, hilariously, could be fixed if he went to college.
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Aug 30, 2014 16:02
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Wittgen posted:The comment section is up. "This comic used 2 be P Gud, now it sucks." Copy/paste that about 25 times on every page, and you're good to go, no need for comments at all!
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Sep 1, 2014 05:11
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You guys are so depressing. Obviously those are Fun contractors, and they're getting ready to kick off the most wicked-amazing water balloon fight in the world for some birthday party.
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Sep 2, 2014 15:16
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Kgummy posted:Huh, why's the guy in the 5th panel moving his hand behind his back? If you're going to die anyway, might as well go out in a blaze of glory.
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Sep 13, 2014 05:28
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A birthday party! Jesus, I've been saying it all along.
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Sep 13, 2014 20:56
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Are you guys just completely ignoring everything she's saying? When you compare yourself to the people you're talking to, it's generally not because you're about to kill those people. Most serial murderers don't have that kind of self-awareness. For one thing, her entire schtick is that someone has to ask her to murder the people. She wants to make 100% sure that whoever she's killing deserves it. As a government agent, she's had to kill her fair share of people too. She outright says it in the final panel of the last update, she's killed terrorists without a trial. She is comparing herself to these men, who also have had the experience of being government agents, who also have a history of doing what needs to be done despite the rules, and who she's just demonstrated are good without being good enough to take her down. All that just so she can kill them? No, no, I'm afraid the truth is much simpler. Birthday Party. 
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Sep 16, 2014 13:39
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She's been taking a few speech classes at the local community college. It's really helped her self-confidence.
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Sep 16, 2014 15:10
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Oh my god, I wish the birthday party would get here already so we could talk about something positive once again.
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Sep 17, 2014 08:35
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Ok, so I know getting between someone and their outrage is generally a bad idea, but I'm just going to toss this out there as food for thought. Have none of you considered the possibility that when she says "It's tricky, but there's a difference", she's not talking about between boys and rapists... but between murder and execution? The thrust of her argument in the panel starts with her being in the right to execute rapists. She adds an aside, that calling them boys instead of rapists is ignoring the point, and then returns to her original point that it's alright to kill those who deserve it? Because, that's immediately how I read it. Like, I honestly had zero clue what you guys were talking about until Opposing Farce just spelled it out, and I still have a hard time believing that's the intended meaning, that boys and rapists are barely different.
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Sep 18, 2014 07:46
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Soonmot posted:She's basically a serial killer now and is escalating. Killing unsuspecting kids and old men isn't enough anymore, despite her claims of doing it for "justice". She's killing these people not because they've broken the law and gotten away with it, but because she misses the excitement of superhero scene. Initially just the act of murder was enough to bring that excitement back, but now things have gotten stale. She stepping up her game with targets who can potentially take her down, that's why she did the balloon exercise, they needed to know exactly what they were up against or there's no challenge and she can't get her fix. I think this is basically right, with one additional caveat. She's not "killing" these people. She's "throwing them a birthday party."
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Sep 19, 2014 16:44
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Unlucky7 posted:Munitions is one thing, but a heavy duty locking mechanism? Ahhhahahaha! Holy poo poo, you think that thousands of rounds of ammunition and loving grenades are easier to get ahold of than a big lock? I just... I just don't even... I don't even know how to respond to that, other than with mockery.
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Sep 24, 2014 18:29
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Give her a link to this thread. Then run, loving run.
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Oct 3, 2014 06:57
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Right, you guys are forgetting that the only thing the media loves more than telling you about someone dying, is telling you "Remember when we reported on these guys months ago!?" I sure as hell know that if I'd done a story on a high-profile rape accusation, and then a year later the accusers died, my editor would make drat sure I put "Don't forget, these guys were attempted of rape!" in the article. Journalists have long memories.
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Oct 4, 2014 18:00
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I think some of you guys might be getting a bit overzealous in defending the author's use of chauvinistic caricatures earlier in the chapter. For one, it doesn't fit with the last few pages, the military dudes are done well. They're much better characters than "racist sexist old man", they have motivations, they're not completely 1-dimensional, and they don't simply narrate their crimes before having their throat slit, hell the offense that actually gets them killed is revealed by someone else. That's much better than the way some of the earlier people in this chapter were treated. I really appreciate the fact that the author devoted the pages needed to fully flesh them out, even if it was pulling double-duty in fleshing out moonshadow as well. And while I am a bit disappointed that it just ended in murder and no birthday party, I agree with Peas breakdown of the progress made over the last few pages. But anyway, I don't really see how you're drawing a trend out of that, since their characterization isn't consistent. They're not shown as terrible people. Sure, they're not shown as good people either, but they don't display the same kind of over-the-top evil-osity as earlier people. They're professional, they're articulate, and they are neither repentant nor unrepentant. Moonshadow just narrates their crimes at them, and then a news report adds some more. They're not laughing with each other about getting away with rape, they're not smarmily picking a fight with The Most Powerful Person in the World, and they're not offhandedly lumping their own sexism, domestic abuse, and a billion other terrible things into one conversation. They are Well Done Characters, and I appreciate the extra time and effort the author spent making them that way. I'm not saying that absolutely every story must have a complete backstory and codex for each henchman, but I don't really understand the line of thought that says the story is actually better for having a certain character be utterly flat and insipid. I can't really speak to the author's motivations for choosing the earlier victims to be that way, but I am glad that things are starting to get back on track and the train is once-again headed for "Amazing Characterization" City. Speaking of characterization, have we heard of Puppetmaster before? I seem to remember Patrick telling us that mind control doesn't actually work, and that people who claim it were actually just making poo poo up. P.S. Small Frozen Thing posted:I admire your effort idonotlikepeas, but some dudes are just gonna get mega defensive and dismissive if anything even vaguely feminist talks about rape, and there's really no way to get them to think otherwise. I was all getting set to write up a big rebuttal about why being dismissive like this makes you an rear end in a top hat, and then I remembered that Brought To You By is the dude who claimed earlier in the thread that rape is 50/50 men and women... So I was going to leap to his defense, but gently caress that. He is not the hero this thread needs. He might be the one this thread deserves.
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Oct 7, 2014 09:53
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Brought To You By posted:They were acquitted. What we don't know is why. There were four gloves. None of them fit. It was practically open-and-shut.
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Oct 8, 2014 08:13
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Mr.Pibbleton posted:Looks like Paladin is going to be coming back into the story. See, I was figuring that the author would bring back "Dead Husband Professor" and have him sign off on it as a forgiveness/redemption kind of thing, but I forgot all about Chekov's Paladin, and that makes much more sense.
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Oct 10, 2014 17:34
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Tar_Squid posted:America is only so bad off because so many of us don't bother to use our right to vote anymore. If we all went and made our voices heard, things can hopefully change for the better.  
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Oct 14, 2014 07:57
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I'm actually wondering if Paladin has a dark past. All her work is based around robotics, and so far the only robots we've seen in the story are the killbots used by Templar. It would be interesting if she was one of the people Patrick had following him, and she decided to flip sides with a new identity after he abandoned the organization. It would also make the robots offering to tear off arms and hand out poison make a lot more sense...
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Nov 14, 2014 23:05
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