2018-10-23 [DMFA #1877] - The ugly ferret face of violence

[GreenReaper]

That should be enough for Jyrras to cut Biggs off. Credible threats of injury - from investors, or friends - are not on. It doesn't matter if Biggs is bluffing; the fear is still there.

Of course, those who habitually conceal the truth naturally fear their past being exposed. But while Biggs' motivation is understandable, that doesn't make violence acceptable.

He clearly isn't the person Jyrras knew in childhood, and he's not someone Jyrras should be involved with now - his sister is bad enough. Cut ties and move on.

[I'm assuming Amber is using the North American convention where the second story is one above ground floor. If it were in the UK, we'd be talking murder.]

[Kazy]

Deadnaming someone is in incredibly bad taste, so honestly it's not *that* much of a physical threat.

[Cassi-kun]

Outrageous violence is kind of the norm in Furrae. When Jyrras started biting Kria's ankles, she saw it as defying the fact that she was stronger than him. Hizell never made anything even slightly resembling an attempt to reclaim Pyroduck, and when Pyro approached of his own accord handed down the proclamation that he might accept Pyro as his son if Pyro killed 500 Cubi, only to finally call Pyro as his son when he handed down the kill-or-be-killed ultimatum. Kria eats people and Lorenda herself has eaten people in the past (Jy even seemed insulted she wouldn't eat him!). Matilda's people kill second-or-further daughters, see beating or killing their wives as a common part of society, and dying of old age is an extraordinary deviation from the norm. Destania taught courses on murder and rape, and wanted to use little kids for demonstrations in her torture classes.

Biggs threatening to chuck Jy out a window is pretty benign, it's only Jy's personal lack of the necessary survival skills regarding that specific threat that makes it a threat at all.

[Zeb]

Every single case you listed were creatures who have a different morality system then beings. As for  Lorenda I'm pretty sure Amber retconned the whole eating people thing given it was in the early days of the comic when it was common for her to threaten with such, but hasn't shown such personality traits for the longest time.

Also I'm pretty sure we're not supposed to be taking Destania, and Hizell as prime examples of "Everyone does this" given they seem to be on their extreme ends to begin with.

[Puyon]

Alright fine, let's get some Being rep in the house.

Wildy has been outrageously violent all of the time and has never chilled out. This could be the whole 'adventurer thing' but when she got cheated out of a fight, she was so desperate for violence, that she mauled Pyroduck: http://missmab.com/Comics/Vol_1342.php
One could also argue "hey she was letting out steam it was a stressful day" but I feel like that does not justify her behaving violently towards friends.

Alexsi has a history of being violent or at least intimidating enough that Abel legitimately fears her: http://missmab.com/Comics/Vol_623.php
Or, ooh! What about the time she strangled Dan: http://missmab.com/Comics/Vol_674.php

And while it may have happened ages ago, it was referenced in recent canon, meaning it wasn't retconned... Jy attacking a guy with a sword and taking off one of his antlers: http://missmab.com/Comics/Vol_1700.php

Absurd violence has always been used as harmless punchlines throughout the history of the comic. Honestly, Biggs just saying "I'm gonna dunk you out a window if you do that again" isn't that credible of a threat, because while he can absolutely do that with ease, Jyrras is better kept alive, both as a friend and out of strategic interest. Like 'thrratening' him in this instance is really just saying "hey deadnaming me is a sure fire way to put me on the wrong foot, and now that you know about it, if you deadname me again, it's gonna look like you meant to disrespect me, and I won't be civil about it next time"

[Jasonrevall]

Violence is funny so it makes a good punchline. Also at the worst Biggs would just dunk Jy-jy out of a first story window. Even then Jy is pretty sturdy I'm sure he'd be fine.

That being said, Biggs isn't a good person. He's a great character but Jy shouldn't even be talking to him when you think about it. Biggs is working, willingly, with Dee who tried to murder her own family for petty revenge. For all we know Biggs is just as much of a psycho as Dee and will kill Jy when he no longer needs him to keep him quiet. Although if Jy wasn't talking to Biggs we wouldn't get to see Biggs as much and that would be a shame. So I'm glad Jy is naively putting his life on the line to talk to someone he barely knows anymore who may murder him and his children in a future arc. Actually wording it that way kinda makes me look like a psycho. . .

[Cassi-kun]

Biggs was also behind the death of Owona, a full blown Clan Leader, someone with the power to combat dragons. Kria seems to be on board with the overall scheme, though I'm laying odds that she doesn't know about Dee's grudge with Abel, possibly that Dee is involved at all. If that's the case, she likely sees Abel as no more than she's treated him this far - a previous student she cared for deeply, who is now part of her daughter's social circle.

[Howl]

Hey let's get a million downvotes.

It's incredibly jarring to throw out a phrase like "deadname" in a fantasy world comic like this. How jarring is it? It's so jarring that if you use three Jars of Greed with three Jar Turtles to chain draw twelve cards at once, then somehow recover the Jars of Greed and do it again with your Turtles not getting wiped out in the process, this is still more jarring,

[Puyon]

Hey let's get a million downvotes.

It's incredibly jarring to throw out a phrase like "deadname" in a fantasy world comic like this. How jarring is it? It's so jarring that if you use three Jars of Greed with three Jar Turtles to chain draw twelve cards at once, then somehow recover the Jars of Greed and do it again with your Turtles not getting wiped out in the process, this is still more jarring,

I personally did not find it that jarring. All I was like was "huh! That's a pleasant surprise!"
Not dissimilar to my reaction of there being an existing gay pride flag and Abel being described as asexual. A few years prior in the comic, Abel didn't even know what the word could be until it was brought up in like... 2012.

I probably don't find it jarring because I'm trans and spend a lot of time around trans people, or other people who know the vocabulary trans people use to describe their experience.
Like man, this might be a fantasy comic, but it's also a comic that takes place in a modern-esque era.

Like. If you find the word "deadname" jarring for a fantasy comic were you similarly jarred when characters started having smartphones instead of lower tech alternatives? Probably not, because at the time smartphones started appearing in the comic, readers themselves probably had smartphones too. Like if you even gave it a second thought you'd be like "huh, I guess the idea of modern in this comic has reflections of our modern world in it, and what's considered 'modern' can change overtime". And that line of thinking can go right at social things as opposed to technological things.

[Howl]

Here's the thing. It's jarring to me because of the deep magical influence in the setting. Unless I'm misinterpreting #1422 somehow, it is stated that there are means to perform a perfect transition, so long as it is taken as a one way street. The phrasing of the comic implies that the result of that transition is such that if the one going through it had been born as the sex they are transitioning to in the first place, there would be no difference. I find the use of that phrase to be strange in this case, because it is a reasonable assumption that Biggs here would have taken one of those perfect transitions given that he no doubt took the matter seriously, and has a lot of sway and presumably cash to swing around. If the means are there, he would be able to get at them.

A truth of the real world is that transitions are an imperfect art. Someone who is post-op will not have the same body they would have if they were born as the sex they transitioned toward. This isn't fun, and it isn't nice, but it is true. As a result of that, "deadnaming" carries a weight of disrespect. It is a disrespect of someone's feelings about their identity, and disparaging what they have done or intend to do in order to feel right.

To expand on the second sentence, I find this terminology jarring in this case because I feel that if the transition is perfect, then the status of being post-op transgender logically should not carry as much weight as it does in the real world. In the real world there is no miracle button, there is no perfect solution. MtF cannot get pregnant, and FtM cannot impregnate. That sucks, but it is how it is. In the canon of this comic, again unless I have misinterpreted the wording of #1422, that miracle button/perfect solution does exist. The problem Biggs was having is solved, and there is nothing to dwell on for him anymore.

My outlook on things is this. The past must be acknowledged and respected, even if it is uncomfortable. Denial of fact in any respect, for any reason, is a slope that leads the way to Hell. Do not lie to yourself or others just because it makes you or them feel better. Those lies will only cause more pain down the line than the truth would've caused immediately. You don't have to like the past, but you must respect it.

(And no, I don't mean "leads the way to Hell" in a literal, religious sense, I solely mean it in the metaphorical "it's going to make things worse" sense.)

[Cassi-kun]

...I'm not entirely sure why it would be so jarring. Furrae is full of "real-world words" that often aren't used in fantasy settings, because parts of the world are semirealistic. Lorenda has a retail job. Kria works in an office. Matilda is essentially a realtor. Talk shows were popular roughly a century before the comics takes place. Pip stole a cellphone to alert Chazore to Hizell's presence in Zinvth. SAIA is introducing computers that wristwatches can outperform. Why should real-world terminology be so jarring when used the way it is in the real world? It's an act of disrespect to drag up unpleasant facets of anyone's past - deadnaming is when the facet you drag up is a trans person's birth name. The existence of "perfect transition" doesn't lessen the significance of putting aside their old self, and certainly doesn't lessen the hurt it may bring to be reminded of the life they had. There is no Bridget anymore - and using that name means, no matter how briefly, that Biggs has to deal with having been Bridget once. And it's probably especially hurtful because one of the last experiences Biggs had as Bridget was the death of his mother.

[The One Guy]

Huh.  As a cisgender person who hasn't met a single transgender person in my life (that I know of), I didn't even notice the comic used that word.  Heck, I'd never even heard that word before, but the context made it so obvious that my mind didn't even register that there was a word I didn't know there until I went back to check just now.  That's like ... the opposite of finding it jarring.

[Howl]

I remain with my stance that it is unhealthy to suppress the past. It must be acknowledged, even if it is uncomfortable.

[Tuyu]

If a person changes their name for any reason (even more common reasons like marriage or divorce), it's poor form to refer to them by their old name.

[Howl]

Yes. Never said it wasn't.

[Cassi-kun]

I remain with my stance that it is unhealthy to suppress the past. It must be acknowledged, even if it is uncomfortable.

It's one thing to acknowledge your past - quite a different one to be confronted with it.

[Puyon]

I remain with my stance that it is unhealthy to suppress the past. It must be acknowledged, even if it is uncomfortable.

It's one thing to acknowledge your past - quite a different one to be confronted with it.

Yeah mate. Trans people don't suppress our pasts, like... you think we don't wake up every morning aware of who we are? We don't pretend to be someone else every day just because we don't advertise that we're trans. It's 100% our business to control who knows that facet of who we were, because I'm not sure if you know this, but the wrong person knowing can be what loses us our lives.

Like... we don't have to constantly acknowledge that we used to be completely different, because ideally, every person is constantly changing and growing and becoming their best version of themselves. Sometimes people had childish or vile outlooks and improved who they were... do you think THEY have to acknowledge that they used to be awful? That someone has to confront them with something they said or did 5 years ago and hold it over their heads, like they'll never recover from having done bad things once?

We aren't delusional, dude. We're not denying that we were ever somebody else. We know we're different from who we used to be, and that we'll be different than who we will become. But constantly thinking about what we are does more than make us "uncomfortable". It can be terrifying. We live in a world where we have to constantly justify our existence, and it's unhealthy to stay in the mindset of fear 100% of the time. We aren't suppressing who we are. We're adapting to a world that's more often than not unfriendly to us, and we're finding ways to cope and be happy in spite of that.

And uh... to back up my statement about transfolks having to justify our daily existence, think about how this thread has been. We've had to discuss whether Biggs was justified by being upset by being deadnamed, whether he was even allowed to say "deadname" (y'know, trans vocabulary used by a trans man), and whether or not trans people are allowed to live comfortably despite having "imperfect" bodies... which uh, your implication that our bodies are imperfect just because it doesn't match a cis person's is also just... bad and straight up hurtful.

Like you probably don't know how those words can effect someone, but I found them incredibly hurtful and it made me feel unsafe... on this forum dedicated to discussing neat webcomics. Like I wanna go back to talking about webcomics, but I didn't want you to keep saying things that were hurtful... who knows? Maybe you didn't even know you were hurting someone.... I think it's better that I told you how I feel about the matter, because I hope you understand my perspective a little better.

[Amber Williams]

I admit, I fully accept I am not the most qualified to speak on behalf of most folks.  There is a lot of life and experiences I will never be able to truly empathize because my life's journey did not take me there.  So there is a lot I tend to defer to those living it.  But at the same time it doesn't negate the fact I want there to be representation of it in my comic.  Because it is some folks life journeys and it is a part of our world and my world and so it is a part of my comic's world.  For better or for worse.

Biggs I won't deny is a very complicated character. So much so the main comic doesn't begin to do him justice.  He's got a lot going on. He's the leader of the twink territories, he works with creatures on a regular basis so it goes without saying that in a world where violence is casually spoken of like its Sunday tea...it is a part of his behavior and vernacular without him even realizing it at times.  And his own responses to his life and his past are his own...and not something to be taken as a community whole.  That's each person's own individual journey. Some people are perfectly fine with their deadname, and that is ok. There are some people who their deadname is a painful reminder and they wish for it to be essentially dead, and that is ok too. That's their call to make.

For Biggs, his old name is an annoyance. Because it isn't his name and who he is today.  Its a reminder of a part of his life that is still very much a part of his life but not a representation of who he is in this day an age. So people just dropping it is frustrating to him because it makes him feel like they're still seeing him as someone else than the individual standing before them.  He's had a long road to build himself to be the leader of a small collective, to be able to toe-to-toe with powerful creatures and to have the clout to talk down Destania and have her actually listen to him.  And all those things were done on his own, as Biggs.  Its who he is.  Which may not make sense to anyone but him, but it is an aspect of who he is and that is how he reacts in the world I portray.

I can't say it is an accurate reflection of trans people, all I can say it is an accurate reflection of Biggs.


But I digress.  The thing above all, is that this is at the end of the day a webcomic that I strive to bring amusement and tell a story through.  Not a place that I want people to be made uncomfortable by.  So I'm asking that if the conversation continues to delve to uncomfortable waters, that people please be considerate to one another and refrain for their fellow forum peeps.

[Cassi-kun]

And there's different levels of out, so the way Biggs reacted was Biggs, not "a trans person" reacting. I've got a male friend who just prefers a female name, a friend who put their transition on pause and no longer cares about pronouns as long as their chosen name is still respected, a non-transitioning friend who simply prefers a more feminine nickname and doesn't have a beard anymore, and the only friends I have who know my ex's old name are friends who knew my ex.

[Akisohida]

..Was there even a spot in the comic where Jy said Biggs' deadname? Or was it off-panel?

Like, due to my memory problems, as far as I am aware, Biggs has always been Biggs. I never knew he had a different name.

And I understand the whole deadnaming thing can be rough if only vaguely; as a game streamer, I streamed an RPG where one of the character's name was actually one of my regular viewers deadname. I asked if they were fine with me saying the name (since it would come up multiple times for about 2-3 hours a streaming session until the game was beat) or if I should give the character a nickname to say.

They were fine with me using the name, since it was the protagonists name and all, but I always felt kind of like I was being insensitive by using the characters name, so I tried to avoid it whenever I thought about it. Just going with the characters gender whenever possible. 'Yeah, she really hit hard!' 'Please dodge, please dodge. She dodged!' etc.

[Cassi-kun]

..Was there even a spot in the comic where Jy said Biggs' deadname? Or was it off-panel?

During the arc where Biggs first approached Jy about building a weapon, Jy made fun of him for not recognizing Dan, as Biggs apparently had a crush on him before running away.

[Akisohida]

Link? I'm gonna look but my net is slow tonight.

[Cassi-kun]

I have a few trans characters of my own, but one was created during a very ignorant time of my life, and boy howdy was his backstory a pile of garbage.

(Puyon this may be upsetting to you, I apologize)

The only trans person I knew at the time was my ex, who had a very rough childhood. And while my own gender issues were temporary, I was sitting in the worst of the external factors when this character came to mind. As such, his original history was that he had been abused into being trans, since I couldn't see anyone "being like that" if they were otherwise happy. By the time I realized how ignorant and offensive that was, the abuse was too much a factor in his overall development to take away without having to re-write him entirely. So unfortunately I "had to" leave the abuse in, but I was able to separate it from his identity.

Since then, I try to be minimal on details about life experiences I haven't been through myself, and to examine what traits actually make sense to connect versus simply being two aspects of the same character.

[Cassi-kun]

Link? I'm gonna look but my net is slow tonight.

1640

[Howl]

Kind of got distracted from my original point in the first place.

I found it weird for that particular word to be used. That's all. I take no issue with the sentiment, ultimately, just vocabulary is weird.