El Goonish Shive

@20148 Even if I find it a tad naive, there is a good argument that Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped, plus I'm hoping that letting Shive get it all out in an Author Filibuster will put the matter to bed.

Honestly, the result I got from reading it was that Shive was tired of talking about it too - this reads like his attempt to put the issue to bed once and for all. Not the most fun comic, but I can at least appreciate what it's trying to do.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

That's the feel I got too. If yesterday's ambiance on this thread also happened on any location Dan Shive reads, thinking "oh fuck, shitstorm incoming, need to nip this in the bud NOW" would be an appropriate reaction.

edited 23rd Apr '15 7:12:04 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

I respect the intent and agree with the message. It's still an annoying, glaring anvil.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

But it's necessary when SJWs are throwing hammers.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

...Okay, props for the analogy.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

I'm just glad that he's aware of Ellen and Grace's sexuality. Even if he didn't use the terms in the story proper, him having the understanding would have made life easier, as he mentions himself in the commentary.

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Let's not use the term "SJW" here, please. This isn't one of those rhymes-with-Shamerbait forums.

Regarding the new page, I think that it might be worth quoting a bit of the rant:

Shive doesn't indicate whether this impression is based on responses that he's received or simply his expectations, but it does look as felt that his audience would have been disappointed has this not been addressed.

While perhaps somewhat author-tracty, I'll admit that I actually liked this page for adding a bit more to Ashley's character, if not in facts then in perspective: I feel as though I have a slightly stronger impression of her now.

However, my favourite panel is probably panel two: Ellen's helping, honest!

Regarding Sarah and Pandora, it occurs to me that Sarah has just been woken from presumably-sound sleep; she might not be at her mental best right now.

Regarding labels, I don't think that I have much to add; I largely agree with 32 Footsteps on this.

(Don't worry, I'm not arguing in favour of it this time!)

I'm afraid that you might end up seeing more of it: it looks to me as though, should this relationship take off, the word "cute" might become one of those terms that some couples use between themselves with additional personal meaning. I may well be proven wrong, however.

I do understand that, but this is, I think, part of what I'm getting at by pointing out the subjectivity of the matter: you seem to be stating those points as though they were absolute and objective—that the comic would be objectively better were those panels removed or replaced by panels with other content. I'm arguing that those changes wouldn't necessarily be better for all readers, at least in terms of beat panels.

As I think that I said previously, I'm finding it difficult to argue without examples, but I recall again that there was, some time ago, a joke on which we had this disagreement: you felt that certain panels were adding nothing, while I felt that they enhanced the joke and that a shorter version would have been less effective.

On recaps I will at least partially agree with you, however—Shive can perhaps go overboard with that at times, although I'm not sure that I agree on the redundancy of all of the panels that you've identified.

I rather missed him, and the barrow-wight scene thereafter—those are two of my favourite scenes from the books. :P

I am quite happy that the earlier parts were sped up, however—I do think that the book has a rather slow start.

Honestly, it's been too long since last I watched Return of the King for me to remember that, but I can very much see how that would cause it to drag, I do believe.

The ending of the book I recall as being rather long, but some interesting and at times quite touching things happened.

edited 23rd Apr '15 9:45:03 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

My Games & Writing

What exactly is a homoromantic bisexual? Is it a term Shive pulled out of his ass or an actual thing? Is it someone who is attracted to both sexes but prefers their own?

Trump delenda est

Remember that Noah told Grace that an immortal manipulated Dex into summoning monsters to attack people. And Grace thinks that the creepy girl from the news was also the immortal who marked Dex. Those dots shouldn't be too hard for Sarah to connect when said creepy girl shows up claiming responsibility for this new mark.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Everything's a actual thing. It means 'attracted to both, but only interested in pursuing a relationship with the same sex.'

Romantic spectrum is real, hence why Aromanticism exists.

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I'm with Ashley.

I think my classification on the huge rainbow spectrum is "hetero-demisexual" or something like that, but "If it's relevant to our relationship, you already know," is a pretty good classification too.

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Yeah. I mean I tend to be a bit more open about my spectrummy stuff (demrom) because I realized that I treat romance really differently than a lot of people. Like one time I got into a fight with someone because they said " you can't choose who you fall in love with" and I thought that was the stupidest thing ever because yeah, you kinda can!

Once I realized I was demiromantic it made things make a lot more sense.

edited 23rd Apr '15 11:49:31 AM by MrAHR

Read my stories!

I find I'm pretty het-sex-rom and cis with a fun myriad of itty bitty fiddly exceptions and accounting for moods.

I've heard that line too.

Sometimes you can't choose who you fall in love with. You can, however, choose what you do as a result of it. "I have feelings!" doesn't mean you need to act on them, nor is it a guarantee of a correct way to act on them. It is not a license to behave horribly to your partner, their partner, or even the person themselves in plenty of cases. It also does not obligate them to love you back.

Love isn't Disney, where fate binds you together at the first inkling. There is a right way and a right time, and sometimes the best thing you can do is just sit and deal with it.

edited 23rd Apr '15 11:54:00 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Well see, for me, I "can" choose. Basically it takes long enough for me to have a crush on someone, that by the time I do, I'm usually really good friends with them already, for like, 2 months minimum.

And when I assumed this was the default, the idea of someone liking someone who was an asshole or called autistic people monsters, just seemed baffling to me.

Read my stories!

Yeah your sexual and romantic orientations can be separate, it happens. I've never had a problem with, when I learned about it, but than I was mostly going, oh so I'm aromantic when I learned about it, so there's that (though interestingly enough it took me a while to connect myself and being aromantic not sure why, maybe it was admitting to myself).

The idea of the line is that people tend to behave differently when their loved ones. The quote is, as I understand and use it, a plead to be more understanding, to be not too judgmental, even if for you it is obvious the love is stupid. Of course, "seeing from the point of view" before judging is something you should try to do regardless of anything. That line is just a reminder that love is a factor and that you don't aways control it.

Of course, "be more understanding" is not the same as "give a blank check". There are cases and cases.

Interesting.

edited 23rd Apr '15 12:17:07 PM by Heatth

I usually just hear it as an excuse.

"Spreading rumors that X's girlfriend is cheating on him in the hopes that he'll break up with her and come be with you is an objectively shitty thing to do." "Well, I can't help who I fell in love with, can I?!"

edited 23rd Apr '15 12:40:08 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

@20158 Well, first and foremost, yeah, the second panel is the most amusing part of today's strip. I've been mentally editing it all day to imagine what wouldn't work for Ellen's thought bubble, and the only thing that doesn't is, naturally, her looking up what Charlotte was talking about previously. In fact, pretty much everything works equally well (albeit on different levels). It's like the perfect mad libs joke.

Regarding subjectivity... look, when I give my opinions on the comic, I do my best to preface with "I believe," "I think," or some other synonymous phrase to show that it's my opinion. I don't do it every sentence, because we all know I'm long-winded enough without trying to bloat word count even higher (believe it or not, I'm trying to shorten my posts). Plus, I generally trust that people understand that I don't need to repeat it for a string of opinions and theories.

@20159 This, this is why we need labels. Yes, that is something that's been around for years; Shive did not make that phrase up. The origins are when people sat down and thought rationally about it, and they realized that what sexually arouses you and what attracts you mentally are not necessarily the same. Now, when you just say your sexuality, it is generally assumed that your romantic leanings are the same way (to give myself an example, I'm a heterosexual male - by leaving it at that, it's assumed that I'm attracted to women both sexually and mentally... while this is actually true in my case, I didn't use a label that confirmed it). However, to give a more complete picture of my makeup when it comes to gender and sexuality, I'm a monogamous cisgender heterosexual heteroromantic adult male. That said, raise your hands if you ever really felt it was necessary to know that about me (Chirping Crickets).

People focus on it way too much.

@20170 The proper response is "Yeah, you can't help who you're attracted to, but you can help what you do with it. You're not a slave to your hormones."

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

Yeah, that is just plain awful.

Even if the action itself wasn't that shitty, you should at last few sorry if you do something bad.

edited 23rd Apr '15 1:34:20 PM by Heatth

@20159: A homoromantic bisexual is someone who is romantically attracted to their own gender but sexually attracted to two or more genders. Basically, as one of my friends put it, "sexual attraction is who you want to fuck, romantic attraction is who you want to do couple-y things with." There are actually quite a few people for whom their sexual and romantic orientations do not line up, which is why it's useful to define what a romantic orientation is.

The first time I heard about romantic orientations was when I was learning about asexuality. Interestingly enough, my sexual and romantic orientations actually do technically match up: I'm sexually attracted to no one, and I'm romantically attracted to no one!

Trust you? The only person I can trust is myself.

I've always been curious on how sexuality/romanticism line up. The ratios and all that. Have there been any studies on the subject?

I have a slight suspicion that I might be aromantic, but I have absolutely no idea how to tell for sure.