2018-03-05 [DMFA #1823] Absentminded Mastermind

[Techcubi]

Andddddd, Dan was apparently confused for a girl even before he wore the robes.

[Zorro]

"Flat chested Angel Chick"  SMACK right in the manhood! 

[PhycoKrusk]

Annnnnnd now I don't know what to think.

[Howl]

If what she had done were something that could be apologized for, I wonder if she would want to.

[ZacAttac21]

.

Just... .

[PhycoKrusk]

I really have to wonder now if reconciliation is possible between; I still think it might be. Dan now has a more complete understanding, I think, of the unique pressures that can be placed upon someone by their racial culture. The only reason that Dan even ended up at SAIA is because Cubi cultural assumptions, namely that Aryanna assumed that, now that he knew he was an Incubus, Dan would naturally apply to SAIA as soon as he had his thoughts sorted out, so she went ahead and did that for him without his knowledge or consent. The fact that it worked out in the end doesn't change the fact that cultural expectations preempted anything that he thought or felt about the situation.

We'll have to wait and see, but I suspect that something similar was at work here with Regina, especially since Dan was raised as a Being, and that is so far outside of Regina's experience that it's completely alien to her.

[Kazy]

I just want them to kiss already

[MT Hazard]

Is it just me or does Dan appear to be missing some teeth? I know he lost a few in his youth to a rock (failed attempted a magic) but those were baby teeth, not the adult teeth he would have had in this flashback.

[Tapewolf]

Is it just me or does Dan appear to be missing some teeth? I know he lost a few in his youth to a rock (failed attempted a magic) but those were baby teeth, not the adult teeth he would have had in this flashback.

He seems to have had a full set on p.1821, so that might just be the way his expression is drawn.

[Somebodyelse]

I really have to wonder now if reconciliation is possible between

She killed a bunch of his friends, Wildy's mother and tried/nearly killed him. So I'm going to have to say no.

[Hariman]

I just want them to kiss already

I want Regina to realize just how wrong her actions were, and to repent of her murdering ways permanently.

I don't think they'd make a cute couple, even without the baggage of murdered family, because I don't think their personalities are compatible in the long run.

Now Dan and Matilda? I am wanting more time with the two of them together, but will happily wait until that happens naturally in the story.

[e_voyager]

My guess is that the Dopey smile is just how Regina sees / remembers him.

[Jaezel]

Did Mab change the text in an update? She talks about fluffy wings now, but before talked about him being a flat chested angel chick.

[MT Hazard]

Did Mab change the text in an update? She talks about fluffy wings now, but before talked about him being a flat chested angel chick.

Your right, the text did change.

[Howl]

I must wonder why.

[Jasonrevall]

I must wonder why.

Cial contacted Amber about the joke as being possibly insensitive about trans individuals. She then changed the joke but then blocked Cial so I have no idea whats going on but a public apology and then private spite is often not seen as a good thing.

https://twitter.com/Hi_Cial/status/972256774412754945

[killpurakat]

I must wonder why.

Cial contacted Amber about the joke as being possibly insensitive about trans individuals. She then changed the joke but then blocked Cial so I have no idea whats going on but a public apology and then private spite is often not seen as a good thing.

https://twitter.com/Hi_Cial/status/972256774412754945

Eh, this'll be an unpopular opinion, but my guess? That person comes off as being a jerk about their point of view. Not originally, but the continued lecturing after the joke was corrected and Amber apologized is unneeded. She said she was sorry and fixed it. Accept that, and move on, not continuously poke at her for doing the right thing, as you wanted.

[Turnsky]

To be fair for all involved the situation is a lot more complex than outward appearances would seem, so please, it might be just better off to let this one alone.

[Prroul]

Besides, Dan being mistaken for a female is a classic running gag in DMFA. It had nothing to do with being insensitive, it had everything to do with callbacks.

[Jasonrevall]

Besides, Dan being mistaken for a female is a classic running gag in DMFA. It had nothing to do with being insensitive, it had everything to do with callbacks.

The problem is the tweet and her fans attacking the trans community. She stated she wanted criticism and for everyone to be excellent to eachother but then after all the stuff and her fans NOT being excellent to others she just quietly bans the very trans people she claims to want to represent in her comic for bringing her criticism after her community treated them like garbage. The joke has become less offensive than the actions taken after the fact. It's not okay. Am I going to get banned for bringing forth my feelings on the situation? I'm already being told by Turnsky to stay quiet. My criticism is she needs to make things more clear about what happened and apologize or she needs to talk to Cial and the others who were hurt in private and apologize.

I must wonder why.

Cial contacted Amber about the joke as being possibly insensitive about trans individuals. She then changed the joke but then blocked Cial so I have no idea whats going on but a public apology and then private spite is often not seen as a good thing.

https://twitter.com/Hi_Cial/status/972256774412754945

Eh, this'll be an unpopular opinion, but my guess? That person comes off as being a jerk about their point of view. Not originally, but the continued lecturing after the joke was corrected and Amber apologized is unneeded. She said she was sorry and fixed it. Accept that, and move on, not continuously poke at her for doing the right thing, as you wanted.

The comic hadnt been altered by that point in the conversation so there was no "continued lecturing" like you claim there was.

[Merlin]

To be fair for all involved the situation is a lot more complex than outward appearances would seem, so please, it might be just better off to let this one alone.

[Tapewolf]

This topic is very much a powder keg so I'm going to step in and lock it for now.  I'll run this past the other moderators who may (or may not) unlock the thread as they see fit.

[Amber Williams]

I'm going to drop in here in the hopes of offering my perspective of the situation, because I realize that one of the inherent struggles is that there is a vacuum of silence going on and such things have  tendency for blanks to be filled in with whatever narrative feels fitting.   I do not claim this is the 100% accurate scenario, this is simply the events as they played out from my point of view, which may have issues and biases I realize.

On Monday I woke to a message from Cial about the Monday's comment punchline and was informed about how the punchline's delivery touched on a hard struggle members in the transgender community face.   So I did what I do whenever I get a criticism...I spent about 3 hours wheezing on the floor.  And AFTER THAT I did what I do whenever I get criticism.... I started to go about to ask various friends and in this case members of the trans community whose opinions I respected for further insight.  And came to the conclusion that while I was coming from a perspective of "no no guys the joke was meant to be this" and had been treating it to a callback to Dan's personal situation...it was essentially a running gag I would rather retire to no longer cause further hurt.  And so I messaged Cial back with an apology and mention I was going to be more considerate going forward.  They responded back with further clarification and I left it at that thinking with the course of action things were going to work out.

The main crux for me at that time(Monday afternoon) was then how to go about with the previous comic.  I went into auto-pilot while I tried to sort things out.  From my perspective, the next strip on Friday was going to initially be the resolution of Dan and Regina's misunderstanding with Regina having a word bubble of "female symbol?" and Dan casually responding "male symbol!" and regina responding with a thumbs up emoji.  But I was in debates because at the time I was not sure if that was really addressing the issue of the previous strips' problem.  So my Tuesday and Wednesday was me trying to settle my screaming emotion hell-brain and come to a conclusion.

Wednesday night I got a set of emails from two other folks who mentioned their discomfort about the strip so I decided from that I would go with the option to edit the previous comic's punchline when I post up the new strip.  I debated about if I should do this discreetly or with a formal message.  I worried that making a large declaration of it would cause discourse and people to rise up in the "oh them wacky thin skinned folks. I wasnt offended :Y" which...no one wants to see myself included.  In responding to the emails though I made a different mistake. When I responded to the second email I copy-pasted parts of the first because my feelings were the same on the matter and I made an assumption that adding personalized additions to each was enough...not realizing that it could come across as dismissive.

On Thursday I woke up to a new note from Cial with news that there was someone who tried to express their discomfort in a chat and they were shot down by other members who were fans, including one who has access to my private twitter.  Due to the nature of a private twitter, it becomes the thing of "what did they say? Did Amber incite people? Was she talking trash about the issue?"   I do have a private twitter.  I realize that can be problematic because its a mystery of what contents lay within.  But in regards to this situation? It was a comment about feeling sad someone was offended by the comic and I would be a weepy sap for a couple days as I sort it out.

My reaction to this was not the best. I'll be the first to admit it.  In the most frank of terms, I had an anxiety spike and panicked because up till that point I had no idea there had even been this situation going on.  Up until I woke up that morning saw that message, I was under the impression things were resolving and I was on my way to pokey-butt moving along. Then suddenly it was in my face, along with a random message saying how my transphobic ways hurt them.  I panicked, and I jumped to the conclusion that Cial had already condemned me and had raised a banner-cry to spear me through.  And in a state of hurt I responded back to Cial and blocked them.  It was not because I wanted to silence their opinion or shut down criticism. It was just...pure and simple I felt personally heartbroken that someone I thought was a friend was so quick to turn and attribute my actions to malice and trans-phobic intents. And my feeling they were accusing me of not caring about my trans followers shook me to the core and triggered a knee-jerk response.  Because from my perspective, not caring about my trans readers is such a concept so far beyond me, and suddenly seeing how every action I had done had now been (in my mental state at the time) taken with the idea I was being malicious...it just hurt.

It still hurts. 

It doesn't negate the hurt my own actions or inaction caused, and I am trying to piece by piece put things back together that had been smashed.  But it is going to take me time because I'll be honest. I'm still not mentally or emotionally well.  And I'm nervous to talk much on it because I don't want people to come at other people in my defense and make things even more tangled and worse.  I don't even know if typing this will help or make things worse.  I am still in auto-pilot trying to calm my screaming hell-brain which is shrieking I need to fix things NOW NOW NOW NAOW but also fighting an anxiety that is making it hard to even function at basic levels. 

I say this because I don't want the impression to be I was like "I want feedback!" and then blocked Cial afterwards.  My reason for blocking Cial was a personal one in that I saw the tone of their message as frightening and aggressive so my fight/flight panic kicked in and I got scared.  It's not a good defense, it's not even an excuse. It was a knee-jerk rash decision that I made in a state of heightened anxiety that only after I came down did I even realize how incredibly poor taste it was.     This is not me saying "Cial hurt me weh weh they're a jerk" and it is definitely not me saying give them grief. I don't think Cial is a bad person in the least because I also realize he may very well also coming from places of hurt and seeing members of his community feeling like their voices don't matter is a cause to get upset over.

I do not know. I cannot even begin to make claims over the feelings or motivations of others. All I can do is try to express my own.  Please, if I can ask anything it is that it would mean so much if people did not take my silence at this time as not caring.  I really do care.  I just also am mentally and emotionally crippled and I cannot process things right now.

(Edit note: HOLY HECK SO MANY TYPOS AND GRAMMER ERRORS. I know the edit symbol can make people wonder if I'm shuffling. It was all janitor clean-up of my run on sentences)

[Darkmoon]

And with this, this thread is remaining closed. People have had their say (which, since most of this stuff happened somewhere else it should have been brought to this forum at all), Amber has responded, and we can all move on.

As has been made clear, there are hurt feelings on both sides. Some people took actions too far on places other than this forum (such as the IRC chat, which is not affiliated with this site). No one was banned from this forum over this matter (yet, see below), and beyond Amber's statement, and a change to the comic, no further actions at this time are deemed necessary. If you feel like you didn't get to put in your two cents and you still things you need to say, too bad. Sit on it, really tight, and learn to live with it.

As far as I am concerned (and since I own this place, my word is law), the matter is now settled on this forum and we are all moving on. If I see this topic brought up again in discussions in other threads (since this one will remain locked), I will delete posts and, if necessary, temp-ban people.

In the immortal words of Cave Johnson, "I'm done here."

[Amber Williams]

(RISKING THE TEMP BAN )

I realize with how heated things are, Darkmoon post may come across as once again "hey guys I want feedback, EXCEPT I AM CLOSING THE GATES TO ALL CONVERSATION SO NOT REALLY." 

I'm really not trying to mic drop.  Its more I feel that right now a lot of my actions are under severe scrutiny and it may be part of why my anxiety has been in overdrive cause it's kicking my paranoia into full effect.  And such things does not make for good reasonable resolutions.  It is not really my call and place to tell people how they should move on. We all work at our own paces.  For me, my pace is just incredibly slow and jilted.

A thing I do want to address particularly when I come back and get in a better head space is the issue in people feeling like they cannot express when something makes them uncomfortable without fear of setting off a mob backlash.  At this exact time, my brain is a potato which cannot grasp how to do that yet.  But it will not be a potato forever. 

I realize the eeeghn of saying this right after Darkmoon just said "All further mention on this subject will be bans".  Darkmoon is my brother, he's going to automatically be extra defensive on me.  And while we are close, he is also not me and is not a reflection of my opinions or speaking on behalf of me.  On that front, I'm not going to argue his decision for the forum. But please do not take this as a sign I am trying to silence any and all naysayers.

If anything it's more a sign of after this post I'm taking a week to recollect myself and will simply not be seeing anything on the forum and Darkmoon doesn't want to deal with my mess.
Or maybe he does, but I don't think Darkmoon should deal with my mess.

[Darkmoon]

Well, I wouldn't temp ban ya for it. It's your comic, and all you're my sister. I can ban or not as I see fit because I am a capricious asshole and I follow my own dickish whims.

But you are correct: open and honest discussion is still very much allowed. If a matter (not this one, as I'm tired of this one) is brought up on the forum and is discussed respectfully, I'm not going to step in. That's what a forum is for. It's just a good reminder to everyone that heated discussions are only narrowly tolerated at this point on the forum and when we (I, mostly I) get tired of it, then the discussion is done.

If anyone is upset with this particular topic being closed, you can contact me via Private Message. I will probably read them, too.

I think we all just need to move on at this point, so let's do that.