Dangerously Chloe 12-06-17 Am I Out of Your System

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Spidrift
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 12-06-17 Am I Out of Your System

Post by Spidrift »

Or it could just be that any dorky or geeky male who Dave writes in a lead role is contractually obliged to have hot girls throwing themselves at him from all directions, sooner or later, somehow -- no matter how daft, implausible, or skeevy the explanation.

See also Gary and Alex.
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Gotoh
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 12-06-17 Am I Out of Your System

Post by Gotoh »

@Spidrift: Alex isn't a male lead, he's part of the support cast.

On that note: I can easily counter that assertion with Ace, who hasn't done anything of the sort. Even when he was being affected by the confidence boost Tia gave him, he only dated two girls, but he was still interested in a monogamous relationship (except Mel wasn't).

Varanus
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 12-06-17 Am I Out of Your System

Post by Varanus »

Spidrift wrote:Or it could just be that any dorky or geeky male who Dave writes in a lead role is contractually obliged to have hot girls throwing themselves at him from all directions, sooner or later, somehow -- no matter how daft, implausible, or skeevy the explanation.

See also Gary and Alex.
I don't think people are disillusioned by Teddy getting women/men who want him/her, so much as Teddy's response to it (namely indulging said desires with casual abandon). From the start he wanted a girlfriend, not a bunch of random lays that he cares little about and doesn't even know. Even shortly after his transformation he showed hesitation in some of the carnal affairs due to his feelings for Chloe, but that seems to have gone out the window. It'd be nice if inexperience with the powerful sexual urges of a succubus eventually gets named as a cause of this.

And really, its a stretch to call Teddy dorky/geeky. He's normally been presented as the straight man to everyone else's strangeness, and beyond a quirky interest in mechanics his reputation at school as a outcast has never really been justified as he seemed a fairly normal, socially capable, not unattractive guy. He seemed more like he should be the kind of guy who is considered average, not a target for bullies and belittlement by girls. Unless we are to believe that one event where he took something apart got him marked ever since. Admittedly being homeschooled myself I have little direct experience with school politics.

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Spidrift
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 12-06-17 Am I Out of Your System

Post by Spidrift »

If Teddy didn't respond positively to approaches, he wouldn't be getting all this action. And Pixietrix protagonist-geeks get lots of action. Therefore, he can't respond as people here (very justifiably) think he should respond.

And the fact that Teddy doesn't show many of the symptoms of being an actual geek doesn't stop him from being a Pixietrix geek. He's slim (but not scrawny), good-looking, and not actively horrible in social situations - much like Gary and Alex. They just have a quirky hobby or two, each. (Alex is a nicer guy because he's not so prone to self-pity or bad ideas.) But all three are labelled "geeks" and treated as such by other characters. They're geek-reader wish-fulfillment geeks - intermittent social outcasts with very few of the annoying issues that get people socially outcast.

(If you want an actual, somewhat realistic geek in these comics, try Jung - who is also, in his snarky way, a nice guy, and successful at things at which he wishes to succeed. He's a far better role-model for real geek readers, but less appealing for reader identification.)
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dmra
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 12-06-17 Am I Out of Your System

Post by dmra »

In the case of Gary and Alex the "action" they are getting is coming from people who are freely consenting. In the case of Teddy it's from people acting under the influence of an intoxicant that has overridden their normal behaviours and desires. Which is hardly the same thing. Trying to explain this story line away as "the author likes the idea of geeky guys getting a lot of sex" doesn't exactly justify the decision to take the story down the currently chosen route or make it any less sleazy. Especially when the character who is doing it is meant to be one of the good guys.

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Spidrift
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 12-06-17 Am I Out of Your System

Post by Spidrift »

I didn't say it did. I just said that the story seems more concerned with geek wish fulfilment than with morality.

Explaining isn't justifying.
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Spidrift
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dmra
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 12-06-17 Am I Out of Your System

Post by dmra »

Sorry if it came across as me saying you were trying to justify the story line. In fact I was agreeing that the current story line is bad writing. I've been reading the strips since the early days of MA3 and have learnt to accept that there will be storylines or themes that I don't enjoy. I've taken that as a reasonable price to pay for all the ones I have. It just seems to me that the number of authorial missteps seems to be getting more frequent. The seeming obsession with long term gender swapping male ( and only ever male) characters, the dreadful decision to bring back the gender swapped Ace as a sex toy for Dio and Cade and now Teddy going from a fairly sensible and thoughtful character into his current incarnation seem to be getting in the way of much better and more original directions the stories could have gone in.

I never thought I'd be saying this a year ago but I'm starting to get bored of reading stories where the same themes get recycled over and over again.

I could be wrong and there could be some valuable lesson that Teddy is going to learn from all this which leads to some kind of major plot and character development but I'm starting to think that it's more a case of the creators having to keep the story going and falling back on lazy rehashes rather than actually wanting to write to the kind of interesting and good stuff they should be capable of.

Varanus
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 12-06-17 Am I Out of Your System

Post by Varanus »

Wasn't Gary pretty poor at a lot of basic social interactions, reading people, etc? All common "geek" traits. Or are poor social skills so common in his verse that it doesn't really count?

Basically I still don't see how Teddy could be seen as geek wish fulfillment as he still has so little "geek" about him. For that matter has he been called a geek? My memory is vague but the only specific insult I recall is a girl saying he was strange or something like that. Compared to Gary very little has been shown to justify how others at school perceived him.

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Spidrift
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 12-06-17 Am I Out of Your System

Post by Spidrift »

Gary apparently engaged in few social interactions before the comic began (and, okay, he didn't notice that his flatmates were shagging like gay bunnies). But the examples of him actually being bad at interactions -- as opposed to saying he was -- were few and far between. It looked more like self-pity than real incompetence.

Note that he got on fairly well with Zii and DiDi from the first, while the nerd herd in the comics shop were paralysed by the mere sight of A GIRL.
Last edited by Spidrift on Mon Jun 12, 2017 10:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Gotoh
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 12-06-17 Am I Out of Your System

Post by Gotoh »

dmra wrote:The seeming obsession with long term gender swapping male ( and only ever male) characters
Agreed.
dmra wrote:the dreadful decision to bring back the gender swapped Ace as a sex toy for Dio and Kade
I'm still trying to forget that happened.

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edisnooM
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 12-06-17 Am I Out of Your System

Post by edisnooM »

Osaru Sensei wrote: You either die a hero...
You know I've actually thought that if Slash-stab is watching the goings on she might be inclined to try and recruit Teddy, I mean he might be acting like a terrible human being right now but he's actually being a pretty good succubus.

Zorlond wrote:Gotta say, I don't get the 'punch me' aspect. I could have taken the first time as just a quirk of kinks, but this strip implies it's something else entirely.
Yeah it kind of looks like Teddy is repeating the exact same steps as with Daisy: Punch, kiss, then go wild.

Gotoh wrote:
dmra wrote:The seeming obsession with long term gender swapping male ( and only ever male) characters
Agreed.
dmra wrote:the dreadful decision to bring back the gender swapped Ace as a sex toy for Dio and Kade
I'm still trying to forget that happened.
Aye, and correct me if I'm wrong, but every time it has been forced upon the individual which just adds to the skeevy factor. To the latter though there is still a stretch goal comic that may do something to fix it, but as it stands now, pretty creepy.



On Teddy as geek / outsider, he actually seems oddly well adjusted (though I suppose that could be why he's an outsider). He is a surprisingly capable individual able to break into a museum, and pick a (demon) lock with a hairpin. He and Abby both act incredibly nonchalant to being followed by Prudence. He faces off against an angry angel with a sword with remarkable aplomb, and fights off a horde of zombie things with a branch.

I mean yes, he could just be a Gary Stu, but I've wondered for a while if there was going to be some twist as to why he was able to do all this.

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Spidrift
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 12-06-17 Am I Out of Your System

Post by Spidrift »

Honestly, I'm not convinced that Teddy has a clear personality beyond "whatever the plot needs this week".
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brasca
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 12-06-17 Am I Out of Your System

Post by brasca »

edisnooM wrote:
It really strains credulity that Teddy wouldn't clue into the fact that all these girls that were just recently attacking him are now completely fixated on him exclusively. And also that none of his "helping" is in fact helping the girls. Judging from Teddy's expression in panel five I'd say it's not just for their "benefit" either.
Does it? Girls with mood swings was the order of the day when Teddi was still Teddy.

Exhibit A: Triana. He goes out on a date with her and she gets angry with him when he can't stop speaking French and she thinks he insulted her. Then she meets him for a revenge date on her ex boyfriend and has the same reaction albeit because of Chloe. What is Teddy to think after that?
Exhibit B: Naomi. She strong arms Teddy into a date and then abandons him when he was knocked out. The next time she interacts with him is when she was high on Golden Wings and greets him in the shower and offers him a hand job. If he didn't think she was crazy then trying to kill Gabrielle confirmed it.
Exhibit C: Lacy. She's supposedly a lesbian, but goes home with Teddy to do some experimentation and actually gives him a hand job only to be subsequently hostile since she's now questioning her sexuality. Does that seem unusual?

Now let's cover the first human girl Teddi has been with
Exhibit D: Gabrielle. She saves Teddi from getting beat up and then proceeds to make out with her and start a fight with Naomi. I'm sure that happens all the time.

We could also include previous experiences with Alchemy, Elsa, and Chloe, but seeing as how they are supernatural Teddy might consider their unusual behavior exceptions or par for the course as far as interaction with women is concerned.

So if you were Teddi having experienced all this craziness the way Daisy and her friends have been acting is fairly normal for Teddy or Teddi.

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Re: Dangerously Chloe 12-06-17 Am I Out of Your System

Post by Gotoh »

brasca wrote:Does it? Girls with mood swings was the order of the day when Teddi was still Teddy.

So if you were Teddi having experienced all this craziness the way Daisy and her friends have been acting is fairly normal for Teddy or Teddi.
Except there's one major difference (two if we include the pheromones) that you're overlooking: Daisy and the others are subservient to him, Naomi and the others you mentioned weren't.

That's how Teddy was able to order Daisy into the shower with him, then bathe and towel him off. As a final test, he ordered her to smash her own face against a locker, which she nearly did when he said he'd make out with her. Which confirmed his suspicion that something is compelling her to be with him.

So Teddy is aware that something is making them act differently than usual. Yet, he hasn't stopped to consider that he might be the cause of it. It's like he's forgotten that he's part succubus now.

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cheshire86
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Re: Dangerously Chloe 12-06-17 Am I Out of Your System

Post by cheshire86 »

"Daisy's Angels" are an interesting bunch. :) They seem to like punching a lot - giving and receiving. Wonder what will happen when they figure out there's only one Teddi... and four of them?

My money's on the girl with the gum and the cute little bun-things goin' on.

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