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Visionary

In Reply To
CrazySugarFreakBoy!

Member Since: Sun Jan 04, 2004
Posts: 1,235
Subj: Re: There are a few reasons I posted that story as a reply, rather than doing anything to distinguish it as an "in-continuity" story ...
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 at 07:16:00 pm EDT (Viewed 5 times)
Reply Subj: There are a few reasons I posted that story as a reply, rather than doing anything to distinguish it as an "in-continuity" story ...
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 at 03:35:34 pm EDT (Viewed 393 times)

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... One of which was the collection of credible continuity issues that Jay raised in his reply, since I also doubt that Caphan society would adapt to the new status quo quite that quickly, and the other of which was the potential out-of-characterness of it, although I have to admit, with that one, I was thinking more along the lines of not disrupting whatever you had planned for the next installment of this chapter.

That being said, Shrike is absolutely right; Glitch is an alien, and moreover, as much as we've explored and challenged many aspects of Caphan society, I'd argue that we've all danced around other potentially offensive aspects of it, either for narrative convenience or for comedy (please note, this is not a criticism), to the point that I think we could (and should) get away with at least one broadly comic "turnabout is fair play" scene of Caphan slavery applying to the other gender.

Indeed, in many ways, Glitch and the Caphan male slaves were on a much more equal footing than gender-reversed scenarios that we've read and written regarding Caphans before, because both Glitch and the Caphan male slaves are eager young virgins. While the majority of men in Caphan culture would obviously have problems with the concept of women owning men, I contend that there would be some minority of men, however small, who might not mind the prospect of female domination as much.

Hell, William Moulton Marston made that the basis of a significant percentage of his stories in the Golden Age Wonder Woman comics, and it's a point that even a number of the character's feminist fans have admitted to finding problematic in the years since; after all, if you're framing feminism as a war against a male patriarchy, and asking men, "How would YOU like it, if YOU were the ones who were objectified and reduced in status?", it's got to be a bit disconcerting when a few male voices say, "I'd prefer it," and they actually mean it.

As for Glitch's willingness to "take advantage," this fits with my idea of her paradigm. As a result of being Earth-based, most of the robotic and AI characters' arcs intersect with the idea of robot and AI rights serving as an allegory for human civil rights, which is probably inevitable for most sub-groups on Parody-Earth, unless something happens to make humans the minority of the population. However, because Glitch comes from a planet populated entirely by robots and AIs, her arc has nothing to do with this idea, and in fact intersects with almost the exact opposite idea, one that I've seen a few Fans of Color online refer to as "The Adventures of Whitey in Blackland." At best, Glitch is a well-meaning white liberal who a) earnestly wants to help those different from herself, but b) can still be remarkably insensitive to their status as actual people. At worst, she's the sheltered suburban white girl who's gone slumming with the "dangerous" black boys to piss off her parents. With liberal white people, racism often manifests itself as something that's trying desperately not to be racism ("Lord knows, I cherish black people" being a common white liberal refrain in America during the 1980s). With Glitch, that unintentional insensitivity is manifesting itself in a different way, which I've made deliberately ironic - Transformers were action figures in real life, so Glitch's metaphors, aside from the Fred Perry comics, were all framed as consumer electronics metaphors, of DVD rentals and personal computers. She doesn't even realize she's doing it, but there are times when she treats humans like toys, cooing over their ability to sweat and grow hair the way a little girl fusses with a talking doll.



I'm glad to see by your response that my reaction, which was fairly negative towards Glitch, wasn't entirely unintended... at least in how she can be insensitive in treating people as playthings. I thought that was a very interesting bit of characterization to bring up, and it adds some interest to her overall.

Personally, what put me off in the story was the stress on the young and virginal aspects of the males... Rather than seeing it as an equalizing factor, it had the opposite reaction on me. I think any time someone stresses taking another's virginity there's a predatory aspect to it. While Glitch herself may be just as inexperienced, the social status makes it clear that they're still not equals, and who would be doing the taking.

Glitch entertaining thoughts of a dalliance with an experienced male slave who was proud of his abilities has a much different narrative feel to it in my mind than trying out "fresh meat". Much as the rich teenage boy going to the knowing prostitute doesn't have the same ring of tragedy as the young girl turning her first trick, even though morally it's tough to really argue one act is any more noble than the other.






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