13-03-18 How did she get in here

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Error of Logic
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Re: 13-03-18 How did she get in here

Post by Error of Logic »

Lita: "Male monkey. Male monkey, wake up. You are in the wrong nest. This displeases your queen and master. Now bring me food."

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worldshaking00
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Re: 13-03-18 How did she get in here

Post by worldshaking00 »

On reading the strip again, Peggy doesn't seem as romantic toward Gary. Maybe she's uncomfortable with Lita there. Not "Good morning kitty" or something similar, but a 'how'd she get in here' remark. Usually when someone compliments their partner with sex they've had, the creative team throws in a heart symbol or three. Peggy, while not being snarky, seems to just state warmly but matter-of-factly that Gary and her had a "good" time.

Also, Gary was still squeamish about saying that they had sex. Was that because Lita was there too... a reminder that Zii is lurking about? While that is definitely Gary, it also rubs me weirdly. Maybe they both are just happy with the friends with benefits relationship and some of us are trying to squeeze more out of their coupling.

Food for thought.
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rogermart
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Re: 13-03-18 How did she get in here

Post by rogermart »

TwoWayStar wrote:
Tue Mar 13, 2018 11:30 pm
The Gary Zii..may be creeping ever closer..but why is a good question? :-? :-? what would this relaationship do for gary?? like...nothing really..
We know from the Volumen 8 ending that when Gary thought he was dying, his big regret was not making a pass at Zii, Gary also talked about his prospects with Peggy, and the only one he didn't want to say (to the point of even blushing) was Zii "because she is really cool and stuff".

Like Spidrift says, he is really impressed by her, so it can be a one night thing or a friends-with-benefits-Peggy-style thing or even a relationship, it is still something that Gary wants to pursue.
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Spidrift
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Re: 13-03-18 How did she get in here

Post by Spidrift »

worldshaking00 wrote:
Wed Mar 14, 2018 3:01 pm
Also, Gary was still squeamish about saying that they had sex. Was that because Lita was there too... a reminder that Zii is lurking about? While that is definitely Gary, it also rubs me weirdly. Maybe they both are just happy with the friends with benefits relationship and some of us are trying to squeeze more out of their coupling.
They both say that they are happy with a friends-with-benefits arrangement. They act amicably but not romantically towards each other. And as you say, their speech bubbles are never decorated with little hearts in their conversations.

Now, to me, when someone says something clearly, and their actions and tone are completely consistent with what they say, it seems only polite to assume that they are telling the truth. That's why obsessive shippers rub me up the wrong way -- they just seem so damn rude, to the writers (for wanting to override their hard work on characterisation) as well as to the imaginary people. And assuming that Gary and Peggy have a romance rather than a friendship seems to me like pure unsubstantiated shipping.

(I took Gary's hesitancy there to indicate that their sex is still quite heavy on the kinky, unconventional stuff. While they've never said either way, I could somehow believe that they've never got round to having a conventional, tab-A-in-slot-B, missionary position bonk. It'd be a viable punchline to a strip, even if it'd seem downright weird by now. So at heart, Gary may see what they do as "sexy stuff" but not "sex".)
rogermart wrote:
Wed Mar 14, 2018 4:24 pm
Like Spidrift says, he is really impressed by her, so it can be a one night thing or a friends-with-benefits-Peggy-style thing or even a relationship, it is still something that Gary wants to pursue.
Yeah. It's hard to guess exactly what's happening there, and this could turn out to be one of the countless loose ends that the comic never does tie up, but Gary's attitude to Zii, and to a slightly lesser extent Zii's to Gary, look suspiciously like the beginnings of romantic love.

(Of course, it could equally lead eventually into a Jonathan Creek-style gag sequence where they have sex once, and both go "Oh. Okay, that was nice enough. Thanks. See you around." After all, some mysteries are better left unresolved.)
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samtheman
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Re: 13-03-18 How did she get in here

Post by samtheman »

I'm seeing a lot of Gary/Zii shippers in this thread and some Gary/Yuki shippers as well. That tells me if the creators do intend on doing an ending that panders to the base Gary is probably going to end up with Zii or Yuki or both. I myself don't ship Gary with anyone in particular but I do like Peggy and think she would be good for him if she can get out of the fuckbuddy mindset but unfortunately that's not going to happen. And I wouldn't mind if Amber and/or Kiley had another shot with Gary but that would require a late game out of left field plot twist for that to happen. So right now it's Team Zii versus Team Yuki; the rocker-chick-loving punks versus the anime-tsundere-loving weeaboos.

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Re: 13-03-18 How did she get in here

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Spidrift wrote:
Wed Mar 14, 2018 4:31 pm
Now, to me, when someone says something clearly, and their actions and tone are completely consistent with what they say, it seems only polite to assume that they are telling the truth. That's why obsessive shippers rub me up the wrong way -- they just seem so damn rude, to the writers (for wanting to override their hard work on characterisation) as well as to the imaginary people. And assuming that Gary and Peggy have a romance rather than a friendship seems to me like pure unsubstantiated shipping.
No offence meant, but this reminds me of an article I read once. Well, I say article, but it was really a rant by an award-winning author bitching about fan fiction. You might think I'm being overly harsh but it's hard to think of a more appropriate word to use; she compared shipping to Photoshopping a family photo so that everyone is kissing each other, (?) tacitly compared fanfiction to pirating DVDs, (!) said anyone who wrote a fix-it fic changing some important detail in the story or ending was completely disrespecting the writer's artistic vision, (Yeah, how dare they not agree that character death A, plot twist B or ending detail C absolutely, 100% had to happen!) and overall just said that fan fiction is a criminal act and writing it or enjoying it in any way makes you a bad person. I was actually surprised at how unprofessional it was, and how she seemed to be taking fan dissatisfaction with her work as a progression of personal insults. I'd have thought someone who presumably had to get used to dealing with editors and all their demands and changes and meddling would have thicker skin than that.

Not that I'm saying this is in the same ballpark, as that, but it's funny how memory conjures ideas and associations from the ether.

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Spidrift
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Re: 13-03-18 How did she get in here

Post by Spidrift »

samtheman wrote:
Thu Mar 15, 2018 5:01 am
I myself don't ship Gary with anyone in particular but I do like Peggy and think she would be good for him if she can get out of the fuckbuddy mindset but unfortunately that's not going to happen.
Personally, I rather like the Peggy/Gary arrangement. It’s two characters in this comic actually admitting that they’re having sex because they like shagging, and not confusing the issue with any pointless comedy or idiot misjudgements. In their way, they’re actually acting more like adults than anyone else in the vicinity.

I kind of hope that they carry on like this until they choose to stop, for sane adult reasons. Or does that make me an anti-shipper? Or a submariner (because I want the ship to be self-sinking)?
So right now it's Team Zii versus Team Yuki; the rocker-chick-loving punks versus the anime-tsundere-loving weeaboos.
You forget Team Household-of-Three, who are looking for all three of them to end up together. (It’d logically solve a few problems.) I mean, I won’t admit to shipping it, but I’d find it logically satisfactory.
LegendaryKroc wrote:
Thu Mar 15, 2018 7:42 am
I was actually surprised at how unprofessional it was, and how she seemed to be taking fan dissatisfaction with her work as a progression of personal insults.
Actually, that sounds entirely professional to me. It’s the professional’s response to the bizarre amateur urge to wade in and bugger about with the stuff which came from their personal vision and which was shaped by their professional skills. I mean, I wouldn’t go that far — I’ve committed fanfic in moments of personal weakness myself — but I can definitely understand the reaction. I suspect that writer may have seen some bad erotic fanfic based on her own work, which for a creator with any kind of emotional investment in her characters, could be quite vomit-inducing.

I was wondering if the writer in question was J.K. Rowling, who is certainly quite defensive of her creations, but she doesn’t tend to do long rants (as opposed to pithy tweets). Still, I’ve always had a sneaking admiration for her flat refusal to license a tabletop Harry Potter RPG, apparently for these sorts of reasons. Despite the fact that I have a bunch of licensed RPGs on my shelves.
I'd have thought someone who presumably had to get used to dealing with editors and all their demands and changes and meddling would have thicker skin than that.
Of course, she may have been lucky enough to have had reasonably good editors — the sort who know that they are there to help polish the book and provide a sensible second view, and not to impose their own dubious vision.
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Re: 13-03-18 How did she get in here

Post by LegendaryKroc »

But that's the thing, Spidrift. It wasn't a criticism of specifically erotic and/or badly-written fanfiction, or a particular corner of the fanfiction community at large that could maybe afford to get a kicking or two to get their shit together, or even just of fanfiction of her own work. No, this was a heavy-handed, sweeping, blanket-condemnation of every fanfic ever written for anything ever, a "the best-written fanfiction is automatically inferior to the worst-written original fiction because I said so" act of literary snobbery. Did I mention calling ALL writers of fanfiction criminals and bad people regardless of disclaimers, actual writing ability or what they were writing about?

And even if you want to make it about not liking people changing the ending for their own reasons, that doesn't make it any better. Not agreeing with fanon interpretations of who should get with whom or how the story should have gone is one thing. Throwing baseless accusations at and trying to guilt-trip them into agreeing with the writer's vision is as far from the meaning of the word professional as you can get (at least in my opinion). It's like the "You're going to Hell if you don't join my religion" kind of evangelism, or the "You're mentally retarded if you don't agree with me that gods don't exist" brand of atheism (because perceived superiority based on religious opinions is a two-way street).

If it was just a complaint about badly-written fanfiction or some particular trend that she didn't like I would understand, but it's not. Regardless of what she may think, it's not beneath an author's dignity to have someone disagree with them about how this or that element of their work should have gone, and it's also not beneath their dignity to have people interpret it in ways they didn't intend so long as those interpretations are within the borders of sanity. Or at least it shouldn't be. For the record, if someone wrote a fanfiction of some original fiction I wrote, I'd take it as a compliment - the odds are, they're writing it because they liked the story, the setting, the characters or at least the style of what I created, and wanted to show their appreciation, even if they didn't agree with this or that aspect of my work.

See? There are many ways to spin a top. (Also for the record, it wasn't J. K. Rowling. I don't remember who exactly it was, but it wasn't her.)

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Re: 13-03-18 How did she get in here

Post by Spidrift »

From your description, it sounds like a rather hyperbolic rant, certainly. A link would be helpful.

But in the end, “professionalism” means earning money for doing the damn job, no more than that. Calling someone “unprofessional” for saying something you personally disagree with only makes sense if their job is saying things you personally agree with. And yes, the author does have more right to say what’s right and what’s wrong for their characters than anyone else. They’re the author. And Death-of-the-Author Theory probably isn’t terribly popular with live authors, for very obvious reasons.
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Re: 13-03-18 How did she get in here

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Heh. I'm reminded of an Ayne Rand quote: "Objectivism is whatever Ayne Rand says it is."

Small wonder some people feel Dr. Universe is a better objectivist than Ayne Rand. :p

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Re: 13-03-18 How did she get in here

Post by Don Alexander »

Gary! HEED the NEED of the comic's LEAD!!!!

And, yes, I'm pretty sure this is the first time Peggy and Gary have literally slept together. It's a nice advance, though the wake-up routine is going to take a bit of work.
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