12-12-17 Need some time alone with my thoughts

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Spidrift
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Re: 12-12-17 Need some time alone with my thoughts

Post by Spidrift »

LegendaryKroc wrote:
Thu Dec 14, 2017 2:14 am
As I recall, she was the only cook in the house for a long time, not that it was ever that prominent except that it was just another thing she was pretty good at. Pretty sure that wasn't shallow, but never mind.
I'm not clear how being good at her hobby makes her a good (or a bad) person. It's just a thing she does, with little moral content. Actually, it turns out the real world is full of professional chefs who are also horrible people. Not that DiDi is like them, and okay, it lets her be nice to people in her way, but... Really? That's evidence of ... anything much?
I'm well-aware of what Character Development constitutes, now that you mention it. And I'm aware of all those changes you keep bringing up, but let me ask you a question: What about developing her morality? How's that worked out?
Stop moving the damn goalposts. We're talking about character development, I point out that Sonya has had lots -- which makes her more interesting than most of the other characters (in my opin... oh screw it, if you aren't taking that as read by now I give up), so you say "Aha! But it's not moral development! She's a bad person!"

Well, you know what? I don't care. If I wanted "moral" characters, I wouldn't be reading Ma3. None of the cast are morally impeccable, and although most of them aren't monsters, and can be quite nice if you catch them at the right moment, very few of them actually think about what's morally right or wrong. (Peggy, maybe, if she isn't too exhausted, Ruby if she can get her head clear enough.)
Just because change is not intrinsically good does not mean I have to enjoy changes that are negative or regressive, or irrelevant to morality.
What? These are Ma3 characters. If you think that they should be undergoing "moral" improvement, and can't enjoy the sight of people misbehaving in new and interesting ways, why the hell are you still reading this of all comics?

No, sorry, don't bother answering that. I'm not really interested. Especially as the answer would probably involve thirty lines of tangentially irrelevant DC comics references.
Let me put it to you like this: Yes, DiDi has been very, very bad to those around her at times. Yes, a lot of the things you've said about her are true. But one thing I've noticed throughout this comic has been that sometimes, when she does or is tempted to do something heinous, she realises she was in the wrong and apologises.
DiDi evidently likes to think of herself as a "good person", and is too deeply stupid to realise that she isn't. That's why I keep harping on about her being shallow. She's never shown any signs of understanding what she does wrong. (Even Sonya does better than that, even if she does glory in it sometimes.) Sure, when even she can't avoid seeing the consequences of her actions, she gets all weepy or apologetic about them for a panel or two -- but then she goes right back to being DiDi.

And by the way, I think that you may be misreading the shoulder angels and devils in this comic. So far as I can see, they don't represent actual, objective "good" and "evil". They're simply visual representations of a character's subconscious processes. The angels are what the character thinks is "good", and the devils are what they think might be "wrong". So Zii, who has an especially scrambled and under-used sense of right and wrong and tries to avoid the whole subject, has an angel and devil who are forever getting confused, and who gave up altogether during the Yvan date -- while DiDi, who likes to think of herself as a "good person", has a gigantic shoulder angel which conspicuously failed to stop her from traumatising half the male population of Montreal. Frankly, it's not a symbol of goodness so much as of self-righteous hypocrisy.
We've almost never seen Sonya do anything purely out of kindness and devotion, and the one time I can think of involved her obsessive love for Zii (that business with the concert the performed at).
Oh, she had difficulty breaking up with her original boyfriend because she wanted to do it the right way. And she liked the idea of solving Peggy's problems, the first time they met. And she tried to let Gary down gently when dumping him. (Uniquely bloody awful sense of timing, but you can't have everything.) And she helped Yuki with Matt. (Rough on Matt, but she presumably reckoned he could handle it.) And she seems to try to be considerate of Peggy's problems. She has her own peculiar sense of what's the right thing to do, when she remembers.
In short, Sonya won't get better without strong motivation, and unless the future conspires to make it so, pardon me if I'm sceptical she can do it.
We are both reading the same comic, aren't we? Menage a 3? The one that's absolutely chock-full of arbitrary random stuff happening to make characters do new and unexpected things?
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Spidrift
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Fluffy
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Re: 12-12-17 Need some time alone with my thoughts

Post by Fluffy »

LegendaryKroc wrote:
Thu Dec 14, 2017 2:14 am

Let me put it to you like this: Yes, DiDi has been very, very bad to those around her at times. Yes, a lot of the things you've said about her are true. But one thing I've noticed throughout this comic has been that sometimes, when she does or is tempted to do something heinous, she realises she was in the wrong and apologises.
But, the moment the opportunity presents itself - Didi takes advantage of it.

Using some of the examples you provided...

Or when she got in an argument with Yuki about having sex with Gary, and ended up apologising (in French!) when called out on it by Zii.
The apology means nothing when the apology is being given to someone she didn't wrong (i.e. - why is she apologizing to Zii when it's Yuki she hurt?)

And then, when Sonya (a girl she had just met - if I recall correctly) told her Gary and Yuki broke up; Didi immediately got naked and intended to seduce Gary. She didn't even bother to verify the claim - she took a stranger's word as gospel truth because the news was convenient to Didi.
Or after desperately trying to get off with Gary and leaving Zii high and dry, which led to this, and later an honest discussion of her feelings of fault with Peggy, and for follow-up a rather misguided and not well-thought-through attempt to patch things up.
And, in the process of coming to this revelation, she not only showed no consideration to how she wounded Gary's ego by saying he failed to satisfy her; but was more focused on the concept that Zii's compassion would give her an orgasm.

And later, when she meets Zii at Sonya's apartment to 'apologize'; she immediately disregards Sonya's house rules (no sex in my bed/on the sofa) and, after Sonya finds out about what they had done, Didi's sympathy towards Sonya's pain feels rather hollow (let's not flaunt our love in front of someone so lonely - really, Didi?!)
Only because Zii successfully gave Didi an orgasm. I think it's a very safe bet that, if Zii had failed, Didi would have knocked Sonya over to get that mind blowing orgasm in a heart beat.

And after Sonya's attempt failed, Didi continued to pour the salt into Sonya's wounds by inviting Zii to sleep with her that night (in earshot of Sonya) and, again, disregarded Sonya's anguish when Zii offered to talk things over with Sonya. She didn't care that Sonya was in pain - all she cared about was getting Zii to leave with her so they could have more sex.
Please, don't come to me expecting me to fix your problems.

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Re: 12-12-17 Need some time alone with my thoughts

Post by LegendaryKroc »

Alright, then. I concede the argument. Some other days of the week, I would probably keep arguing these points all the way into the sunset, but not today.

I'm won't go into the details, but I have forum-external things to worry about that are putting me under a lot of pressure, and they're affecting my mood today. My first reaction to reading posts disagreeing with me was to launch into a rant, which I held off doing and won't be indulging. That was never what I wanted from this argument anyway; at first I mostly wanted clarifications about Spidrift's opinions that I now have, but at some point the argument superceded the reasons to have it in importance. Between that and the aforementioned things to worry about IRL, I don't think there's any win condition for this argument except winning, and I don't think that's possible for me at this point.

So, without asking for pity, I'm going to just stop arguing and pull out the old cliché "agree to disagree", as it is clear to me that while we are indeed reading the same comic, there are differences in the way we read it, what we want from it and so forth that cannot be reconciled ATM. With that in mind, good game, well-played, etc. I hope I haven't permanently soured anyone's opinion of me.

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Re: 12-12-17 Need some time alone with my thoughts

Post by Fairy Glade's Fairy »

Vitocap wrote:
Wed Dec 13, 2017 6:34 pm
Fairy Glade's Fairy wrote:
Wed Dec 13, 2017 5:04 pm
Image

Very nice Photoshop work! :-bd
Thx!
I had a lot of work with some things... Giz completely botched the proportions in the third panel... when I removed Didi's arm which was hiding Zii's neck & half of Zii's face, and tried to complete the drawing, I found I couldn't do it without incrusting Zii's jaw into her solar plexus... I had to improvise, re-scale and re-place Zii's head to get the props right......

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Re: 12-12-17 Need some time alone with my thoughts

Post by Don Alexander »

rogermart wrote:
Tue Dec 12, 2017 3:15 pm
Erik, more like a Black Metal band.
Haha, that was my first thought too! :D

Though, let's be honest*, she now looks more like some emo screamo band girl...
Spidrift wrote:
Tue Dec 12, 2017 5:07 pm
she's always had this bizarre reality-warping powder to get people to give her what she wants.
I'd like some of that powder! :-o Though I guess you need a prescription for it...
Spidrift wrote:
Tue Dec 12, 2017 8:49 pm
(Don, the FAQ needs updating.)
I know I'm running late but done.

And, MY GOD, this was a long thread... Not so much post-wise, but content-wise. Doorstoppers indeed. #:-s

* I first typo'd this to Hoest... :-?
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