Magick Chicks 27-03-12 Enjoying the perks

[Don Alexander]

Also I am pretty sure that in this comic that Faith's mind juice is rubbing off on people, and making them feel sexually aroused, because Mel hadn't lost her train of thought until Faith arrived.

Actually, having been in a not quite similar situation I can say that it is easy to get distracted by a beautiful bit of half-naked person even if someone isn't influencing you. So, no, I would not say that she was going to lose train of thought because of Faith.

So close and yet so far.

Come on, Marzipple, Mel's reaction has nothing to do with Faith or any of her mind juice at all. Mel is clearly overwhelmed by ASH and his Adonis physique! So far, Mel has been pretty much straight...

[Artemisia]

A long time ago. . .oh about a half decade ago I guess. . .This very attractive, raven haired woman who had quite a lot of cleavage showing walked up to her car in the parking lot at Walmart while I was talking to my mother. I completely lost my train of thought. I mean, my brain completely froze up and other things began, um, yeah. . .after the woman had driven away, my mother laughed about it saying that it definitely proved which side of the fence I was on.

[TazTheTerrible]

While I don't agree with calling Faith a slut, I do equate her to that over popular high school bully who does manipulate others to get her way. No, she doesn't hide the fact she does it, but that doesn't mean everyone thinks and feels the same way about it as Faith does. I'm sure Faith doesn't go around school proclaiming how much she "loves the perks" of being popular.

Now that I will acknowledge. Faith definitely does things that aren't quite okay, and on occasion things that are seriously not ok. Though I would argue that she doesn't appear to manipulate her harem much. Those girls seem to do it because they honestly want to please Faith. Could be mind-juice related, but given that we have no proof of said mind-juice and whether or not it is conscious on Faith's part even if it is a factor, I'm not going to call that manipulation.

Now, towards her perceived opponents, she does indeed act more manipulative. But that's honestly pretty par for the course for teenaged girls. She's not half as manipulative as Mel or Cerise in this aspect.

As for the dream thing with Mel, I wouldn't exactly call that manipulation since it was about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the knees, though that's a matter of semantics I suppose. Is seduction manipulation by default? Depends on your definitions. I'm not saying it wasn't a problematic thing (though how problematic exactly is rather iffy where it concerns vaguely described psi-powers) but it doesn't strike me as a course of action typical for a manipulative personality. It seemed much more a matter of "Faith wants something, Faith goes for it, hard".

This seems to have more to do with her lacking sense of boundaries.

[Marzipple]

Also I am pretty sure that in this comic that Faith's mind juice is rubbing off on people, and making them feel sexually aroused, because Mel hadn't lost her train of thought until Faith arrived.

Actually, having been in a not quite similar situation I can say that it is easy to get distracted by a beautiful bit of half-naked person even if someone isn't influencing you. So, no, I would not say that she was going to lose train of thought because of Faith.

I have also been in a similar situation, and have a fantastically short attention span, but I wouldn't have gone from trying to deduce whether I was in the Twilight zone straight to short-term-memory-loss oggling. (I would have just reacted like Jacqui.) Also, Ash had already been shirtless a strip before, and Mel seemed more weirded out by him than erotically distracted.

Come on, Marzipple, Mel's reaction has nothing to do with Faith or any of her mind juice at all. Mel is clearly overwhelmed by ASH and his Adonis physique! So far, Mel has been pretty much straight...

Haha! I actually that might be part of why Mel succumbed to Faith's mind juice, because she is straight and does think Ash is overwhelmingly hot--therefore she was more susceptible to some rogue emotions Faith could have been emitting.

Now that I will acknowledge. Faith definitely does things that aren't quite okay, and on occasion things that are seriously not ok. Though I would argue that she doesn't appear to manipulate her harem much. Those girls seem to do it because they honestly want to please Faith. Could be mind-juice related, but given that we have no proof of said mind-juice and whether or not it is conscious on Faith's part even if it is a factor, I'm not going to call that manipulation.

Well I never said Faith manipulated everyone, I just said she did use her strengths in a manipulative way, whether they be charm, charisma, or psychic abilities. However, at the beginning of the strip when she has it so that the coven's skirts dropped in front of everyone, it seemed as though this was some normal "initiation" Faith always did to people because everyone always found it fun or amusing. So she uses peer pressure to manipulate a certain situation. I don't think whether she is or isn't psychic plays a large role in whether or not that makes her any more or less of a jerk, but how she uses those powers does.

As for the dream thing with Mel, I wouldn't exactly call that manipulation since it was about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the knees, though that's a matter of semantics I suppose. Is seduction manipulation by default? Depends on your definitions. I'm not saying it wasn't a problematic thing (though how problematic exactly is rather iffy where it concerns vaguely described psi-powers) but it doesn't strike me as a course of action typical for a manipulative personality. It seemed much more a matter of "Faith wants something, Faith goes for it, hard".

This seems to have more to do with her lacking sense of boundaries.

I suppose this part depends on how you perceive the situation, but from my point of view Faith manipulated the environment and Mel's lack of consciousness in order to use hormones to seduce Mel. I'd honestly equate Mel's situation to getting buzzed or drunk except that it was more like someone spiked her drink than Mel getting drunk due to her own immaturity or responsibility.

So yes, I believe in that instance Faith used her powers and sexual prowess as way to manipulate Mel into a submissive state. Understandably, when concerning romance or intimacy, this sort of thing can happen naturally sans any magical powers, and there might actually be some natural sexual tension or romance, but without mind-reading we don't know that.

Since we don't know that I tend to take Mel constantly telling Faith "no" at face value, in that it means "no." Mel has not shown that she has any actual feelings for Faith other than disgust/dislike/jealousy so I haven't interpreted anything she's said beyond that.

However I don't think Faith's lack in understanding boundaries means that excuses her manipulating others. And yes I acknowledged that other characters in the comic tended to be manipulative, but I think Faith takes it to an extreme because she goes after a lot of people without regards for personal boundaries.

[TazTheTerrible]

Fair enough, it seems we're operating under slightly different definitions of "manipulative".

I tend to take the word manipulative in a perhaps somewhat narrow sense of social machinations and I consider it to imply a certain scheming sort of personality type.

You seem to encompass more into it. Things like the dream environment Faith created for example. It is technically correct to call this manipulation, but I wouldn't treat it as such because if you take the definition too broadly it, in my opinion, covers too many things, including things that aren't in any way negative.

For example, you could take preparing a nice romantic candlelit dinner for a date with soothing, sexy music and generally a good mood in the environment to be "manipulating" the environment in order to maximize your chances of getting laid. And this could be technically correct, but most people wouldn't consider it a heinous crime against basic morality.

In a general sense, humans manipulate objects and other humans all the time, but mostly in ways we generally consider harmless. In the broadest sense we do pretty much nothing BUT manipulate or use manipulations previously established. After all, manipulation of the world around us is how we became humans in the modern sense.

So I prefer to use a narrower definition myself and by that I don't really consider Faith to be a manipulative personality type, not nearly as manipulative as Mel, Cerise, or even Jacqui at that. Faith's a charmer, sure enough, but not really a schemer, at least not in the social sense from my impression.

I do agree that her lacking sense of boundaries doesn't excuse her actions. But that's the beauty of fictional characters. I don't have to excuse them. She can be flawed to the point of arguable criminality and I can still love her as a character where I would have to judge her more harshly if she were a real person.

As a side note though: Again, this is not to try and excuse Faith's actions, but we should consider this in perspective with respect to the setting of a monster hunter school that seems to operate under an almost constant wartime mentality. It's probably not entirely realistic to expect morality to be quite as clean cut under those circumstances.

Most, if not all of Faith's character makes a lot of sense considered in context. I would even go so far as to say that in the context Faith finds herself in, she's actually a considerably better person that I would expect most people in a similar position to be. I would assume this is conscious on the part of the authors to make her a little more charming/likeable.

To explain what I mean, let's take a random example of one of Faith's less pretty moments: when she messed up Layla into a bloodlust state. This was a deplorable, arguably even despicable or borderline insane course of action from our point of view, because we know Layla is a thinking, feeling, generally not too bad person. Tiffany, in that situation, has a similar perspective because she knows this about Layla as well, even if she doesn't consciously think the whole thing through quite so clearly. But from Faith's point of view, exactly how likely would it be that at that school she is thought to see monsters as people with real emotions and basic human rights?

That's not really an excuse, but why should we want excuses? This isn't a trial, it's a story. And stories with characters that are all nice and good and whose flaws are all ultimately minor and morally non-problematic are boring.

[Hurbster]

Well, so are stories with too many characters trying to be manipulative, unsympathetic bitches.

[TazTheTerrible]

No one's forcing you to read it.

[yiraheerai]

Actually, I am.

*tugs the rope tying Hurbster to the chair tighter*